WHY SO SHY, LA TIMES?

UPDATE: Media Matters has a good collection of rightwing involvement in this.

This article in the LA Times ponders why so many Americans think Pres. Obama is a Muslim and these are the key grafs:

The confusion could also be due in part to Obama's Muslim-sounding middle name of Hussein, having a Muslim father from Kenya and living much of his early childhood in Muslim Indonesia with his Indonesian stepfather and Kansas mother.

Obama has also made much of his diplomatic outreach to the Islamic world, including numerous White House messages, diplomatic gestures and an unusual trip to Egypt to address the Muslim world in June of 2009. (See full text below.)

Another factor could be a combination of popular culture and political partisanship. For many years the typical bad guys of American popular culture were Nazis. But especially since 9/11, the bad guys have often become Arabs. And as opposition has grown to Obama and his policies, so too have widely e-mailed and professed, albeit undocumented, online suspicions not just about his unreleased birth certificate but about his goals, alleged socialist ideals and possible anti-American or Arab allegiances.

NOT ONE MENTION OF FAUX NEWS OR RIGHTWING TALK RADIO.