Dept. of cognitive dissonance

It's a bit of a puzzle to me, though maybe it shouldn't be, that some voters seem perfectly able to hold in their heads simultaneously the notion that Obama's a Muslim and that his Christian pastor is a problem.

A particularly pungent passage from Richmond, IN Palladium-Item:

"I am definitely going to try to go with Hillary," said [Mary Bunger, a 44-year-old single mom from Abington]. "I almost feel like [Obama's] anti-Christ from the Middle East." Bunger reads news online about the election and has been "trying to talk everybody into voting, especially this year because I'm really scared for Obama to get it." Bunger worries about the Illinois senator's ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose recent remarks and former association with the candidate made headlines the past couple months.

ALSO: In my limited anecdotal experience, and as Lynn Sweet reports today, the Muslim smear is in the air a bit in Indiana. [Last sentence corrected a bit; I'd mischaracterized Sweet's piece.]

NOTE: This item, as Josh Marshall noted, was briefly given a headline on Politico's front page that described Obama as a Muslim. That's obviously untrue. Thanks to the readers who quickly pointed it out, whose displeasure about it I share. How it happened: The headline writer cut and pasted a portion of the first sentence to make the headline, and dropped the word "notion."