Half the Internet — the half that isn't busy downloading porn — is speculating why the increase in the number of Americans who think Barack Obama is a Muslim. (I'll leave it to you to fill in the snotty-but-true comment on which half is doing something more productive.)
Kevin Drum thinks it's simple: More people believe the lie because Obama's political enemies are spreading it with increasing gusto and frequency. And I'm sure Kevin's right. But shouldn't we append that Obama's opponents are also becoming more and more nutso about the economy and paranoid about everything? No one in this country cared much where mosques were built a few years ago. The more paranoid you get, the more you're willing to believe (or at least tell pollsters you believe) any stupid thing that might weaken your foes.
Also, they've been running out of insults. They called him a Communist and a Socialist and now that's getting old. They called him Hitler but, hey, these days everyone is Hitler at one time or another. For a while, they were calling him the Anti-Christ. So why not try calling him a Muslim? Hell, by this time next year, they'll be telling us he's a broken table lamp, the resurrected corpse of Jeffrey Dahmer and The Brain From Planet Arous.