Many Americans not certain if Trump was born in the US

This is too funny, but this new USA Today poll puts some limits to how seriously we should treat these polls on where Obama was born.

not everyone is convinced Trump was born in the USA either: 43% say he definitely was born here, and 20% say he probably was; 7% say he definitely or probably was born in another country. Nearly three in 10 say they don’t know enough to say. . . .

For Obama

only 38% of Americans say Obama definitely was born in the USA, and 18% say he probably was. Fifteen percent say he probably was born in another country, and 9% say he definitely was born elsewhere.
Views already are polarized about President Obama and some major Republican candidates for 2012. . . .

More than half of Democrats believed that it was at least "somewhat likely" that Bush was "complicit" in the 9/11 attacks

Ben Smith at Politico has been writing a lot about the "birther" issue. This last week he added the point below. I remember this (and I seem to remember other polls), but I hadn't seen anyone talk about it and surely none of the media have raised it when they have pushed Republicans on the issue. If I had been a Republican being pushed on the "birther" issue, I would have said that I was no more responsible for it than leading Democrats were on the Bush was complicit in 9/11 issue, indeed even less so because I had spoken out on the "birther" issue. Indeed, the Obama administration even had "truthers," such as Van Jones working in it, but there was never really any outrage in the MSM about that.

More than half of Democrats believed Bush knew

I've been looking for a good analogue to the willingness of Republicans to believe, or say they believe, that Obama was born abroad, and one relevant number is the share of Democrats willing to believe, as they say, that "Bush knew."

There aren't a lot of great public numbers on the partisan breakdown of adherents to that conspiracy theory, but the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard.

"How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?" the poll asked.

A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was "very likely." Another 28.2% called it "somewhat likely."

That is: More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks.

I'm still not sure this represents actual belief, as opposed to a kind of trash talk about a president you hate. (Bush wasn't mentioned in that survey question, but had been earlier in the poll.) . . .

White House attacking Trump to give his candidacy credibility?

I simply don't believe this claim:

"There is no issue that irritates the White House more than the birther issue," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
"They view it as a symbol for those who refuse to acknowledge Obama as a legitimate president," he said. "The fact that someone as prominent as Trump is bringing this up is a source of real frustration."

I think that the Obama administration is attacking Trump precisely to give his candidacy credibility:

The White House stopped just short of dismissing Donald Trump as a clown Sunday - calling him a "sideshow" act with "zero chance" of becoming president.
Chief Obama adviser David Plouffe unleashed a barrage of stinging comments on Trump, who has recently trafficked in fringe conspiracy theories about Obama's place of birth while taunting America with hints of a presidential run.
"There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people," President Obama's chief adviser David Plouffe told ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
Plouffe noted Trump's surprise second place showing in a recent poll of New Hampshire voters with glee.
"I saw Donald Trump kind of rising in the polls and given his behavior and spectacle the last couple of weeks, I hope he keeps rising," Plouffe said. . . .

Note the past Obama practice of praising those Republican presidential candidates whom they want to hurt:

President Barack Obama has come to praise his Republican challengers - and to bury them.
Over the last few weeks, Obama and his top allies couldn’t seem to stop applauding several of the GOP’s potential 2012 contenders.
To listen to them tell it, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a health care visionary and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is a loyal foot soldier of the administration.
The political calculus behind that praise is straightforward: by wrapping their arms around some of the GOP’s most credible and deep-pocketed potential challengers, Democrats undermine the party’s attempt to win over its conservative base in the primary.
Obama aides deny that they’re wading into the Republican contest, but they’ve sought to intervene in GOP politics in the past, if on a smaller scale. Part of the benefit of sending Huntsman to Beijing was the hope that it would remove a moderate and wealthy Republican from the 2012 field, just as appointing Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y) as Secretary of the Army and attempting to place Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in the administration would have freed up GOP-held seats. . . .

Stay away from the Nutty Birther Claims, Why Republicans should stay away from Trump

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Partial Transcript

Trump: He doesn't have a birth certificate or he hasn't shown it. he has what's called a certificate of live birth and that's different f. you look at it, it's not even signed by anybody. doesn't have a serial number.

Reporter: the certificate of live birth does have a serial number and a stamped signature and hawaiian officials say it carries the weight of law. if one of your parents is an american citizen you could get a certificate of live birth in hawaii even if the child wasn't born there but this document states obama was born in honolulu and a hawaiian official say original records verify the president was born there. and there is a birth announcement nine days after president obama was born, information the paper says would have come from the hospital.

Trump: his grandmother in kenya said he was born in kenya.

Reporter: that's based on a recording of a 2008 interview with obama's elderly grandmother conducted through a translator. initially the translator said she was present for her grandson's birth.

Translator: Yes, they say that yes she was. She was present when President Obama was born.

Reporter: Listen and the answer changes. When the interviewer says that he wants to visit the hospital in Kenya where Obama was born he's repeatedly corrected saying Obama was born in America.

Interviewer: I thought that he was born in Kenya.

Relative: No. He was born in America. Not in Mombasa.

Nutty left wingers

Mother Jones is attacking Michele Bachmann for hiring Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson. Sorenson's sin? That he wants presidential candidates to file evidence of a birth certificate for them to be on the ballot. This gets him classified as a "birther." Possibly they have some other evidence, though they apparently haven't found it useful enough to mention. Let me ask a hypothetical question: Would the nutty "birther" debate even be occurring now if such a law had been in place in 2008? Obviously not. My own guess is that Obama hasn't acted to clear up this whole debate because it is in his interest that these claims continue. Why are Democrats angry about this proposed bill? That is the real puzzle. Democrats claim that Obama is too busy to bother putting out his birth certificate. Be serious. It won't really impose on anybody or make a difference in any race. All serious presidential candidates are American citizens so the law will be irrelevant except for ending this silly "birther" speculation. Places such as Mother Jones simply don't want the speculation to end. Mother Jones has a history of getting facts wrong, but this twisted discussion about Bachmann is pretty amazing.

Republicans viewed as crazy, but no similar coverage of Democrats

Politico writes about the news coverage of Republicans.

Joe Wilson’s outburst Wednesday night earned more than a personal rebuke from the president and a dagger-eyed gasp from the speaker of the House; it drew winces from Republicans worried that their party is becoming known less for the power of its ideals and more for the pettiness of its vitriol.

“Neither party has an exclusive on wack jobs,” says Republican media consultant Mark McKinnon. “Unfortunately, right now the Democrats generally get defined by President Obama, and Republicans, who have no clear leadership, get defined by crackpots — and then they begin to define the Republican Party in the mind of the general public.”

Turn on the TV, and you see what he means.

Here’s Orly Taitz, insisting that the commander in chief was born in Kenya. There’s a flock of angry protesters chanting “Just say no!” and carrying signs depicting a Democratic congressman with devil’s horns. Former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin warns darkly that Obama is planning “death panels” for senior citizens. Georgia Rep. Paul Broun equates the president’s plans with “Nazi” policies. Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt — last heard calling John Murtha a “coward” — tells a birther: “I agree with you, but the courts don’t.” . . . .

Of course, one needs only look at the news coverage of the 13 people who carried guns to rallies near where the president was campaigning for government run health care. But where is the discussion of the other side of Van Jones calling Republicans "assholes" or the President saying that those who oppose him are lying when he talked on Wednesday (obviously aimed at Palin (she is correct about the rationing by the way)). If an abortion doctor were killed, it would be national news. The fact that an anti-abortion activist is killed gets very little attention.

State police at the Corunna post have confirmed a well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed this morning in front of Owosso High School.

The victim's identity has not yet been released but the shooting occurred around 7:30 a.m., after most students were off the buses and safely inside the building, said Owosso schools transportation supervisor Jayne Campbell.

State police also confirmed that a suspect was taken into custody about 8:15 a.m. at the suspect's home.

Michael Barone: another imbalance in the press

I would say that this involves much more than some liberal columnists.

Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that President Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" who occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" Van Jones in the Obama administration. . . .