PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE BARKING LUNATICS BEHIND THE CURTAIN

It's hard to overstate the importance of the new Kos/Research 2000 poll of self-described Republicans' beliefs. You probably already know some of the details:

Thirty-six percent don't believe Obama was born in the United States, and 22 percent aren't sure....

Only 36 percent say that Obama doesn't hate white people....

Thirty-nine percent believe Obama should be impeached....

Only 24 percent say they definitely don't believe that ACORN stole the election....

Thirty-one percent think contraception should be outlawed....

And on and on. Kos is right when he says, "Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country. Their base are conspiracy mongers...."

But this can't be the story. Republicans won't allow it to be. And the media almost certainly won't accept it as the story. There'll be pushback, which the media will accept and promulgate with relief.

How much do you want to bet that within days -- despite spending the last year or so issuing one poll after another suggesting that the public is far more right-wing than other pollsters' surveys indicate -- Rasmussen will issue a poll showing that Republicans are less crazy, less racist, less homophobic, less theocratic, and less conspiracy-minded than the Kos poll suggests? Doesn't that seem inevitable?

I think that Rasmussen poll will be out by Friday. And much of the press will conclude that what we have is "He said, he said," and that'll the last you'll hear of the Kos poll, except among liberals and lefties.

I hope I'm wrong about that. But I think this is too discomfiting a narrative for our political culture. So it will have to be debunked, even though it's almost certainly accurate.