Politics

‘Is Obama a Muslim?’ polls unfairly made southerners ‘look stupid,’ claim ‘The Five’ hosts

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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On Tuesday’s broadcast of “The Five” on the Fox News Channel, the show’s panel took a shot at the “left-leaning” Public Policy Polling group poll conducted in Alabama and Mississippi in which one of the questions asked, “Do you think Barack Obama is a Christian or a Muslim, or are you not sure?”

The results showed that a surprisingly high number of people believed that Obama was in fact a Muslim, and predictably received breathless coverage on left-leaning MSNBC throughout Monday and Tuesday. However, “The Five” co-panelist Greg Gutfeld had an explanation for the results.

“It’s funny and Chuck Todd mentioned this before,” Gutfeld said. “This is robocalls, so they are not actually talking to somebody. So, imagine if you are a 14-year-old kid, and you get a phone call, ‘Press 1 if you think Obama is a Christian. Press 2 if you think he is a Muslim.’ I’m going to press Muslim because I’m a kid. It’s funny to me that you have that suggestion as a robocall.”

Gutfeld had an analogy for how ridiculous the poll was, suggesting that a similar one could be conducted in a liberal stronghold to make Democrats look idiotic.

“Imagine like the Republicans would be equivalent of calling Berkeley,” he continued. “Press 1 if you think Republicans eat babies. Press 2 if you think they eat puppies. I mean it’s a ridiculous thing. Most people said Muslim as a joke or because they don’t like Obama. But, they don’t actually think that.”

Gutfeld’s co-panelist Eric Bolling outright said the polling result was meant to be used as a political weapon.

“PPP, they lean left. What they’ll try to do to is drive a wedge,” Bolling said. “They’ll say, ‘Look at what is going on in the South. These are conservative Republicans. And what they do is they attack the base. The base, they say, ‘You don’t want to be like them. You want to be more moderate. You want to be more centrist and they say, ‘Don’t be like them.’ Just by default. It pushes voters away from whoever.”

Tamara Holder, filling in for “The Five” regular Bob Beckel as the lone dissenting liberal on the show’s panel denied the existence of a left-leaning poll plot. But Gutfeld said it was certainly intended to make southerners “look stupid.”

“I thought this was about making southerners look stupid,” Gutfeld said. “That was the whole point.”

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