If you need any proof that John Birch is alive and well and running the GOP all you have to do is watch this Frank Luntz focus group comprised of Iowa Republican caucus members on Hannity. It's stunning in its twisted belief system. Even Frank Luntz in my opinion was taken back by what they were saying because they weren't asked specifically what religion Obama belongs to.

Bill O'Reilly is still obsessing over his ratings from his Super Bowl interview with Obama which I will talk about in another post, but Luntz's Road to 2012 focus group was asked to comment on Obama's response to BillO's question about the Muslim Brotherhood.

Luntz noted his group’s extremely negative reaction when, in his interview with Bill O’Reilly, Obama did not say he didn’t want the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a new government in Egypt. Then, feigning non-partisan curiosity, Luntz deliberately elicited a slew of condemnation by asking his group, "The reaction was so negative, so overwhelming, what’s the problem?”

But I wonder if Luntz knew what he was in for when one member of his group piped up with, “I believe that Barack Obama’s religious beliefs do govern his foreign policy.” When Luntz pressed her to explain what those “religious beliefs” were, the woman replied, “I believe that he is a Muslim.” “You do,” Luntz said. How many of you believe that here?” The majority of the group’s hands went in the air.

Up until that point, I was suspicious that Luntz knew his group's beliefs in advance and had begun the Muslim Brotherhood discussion with an eye toward steering the discussion that way. But then Luntz sounded a bit dismayed as he said, “Now, do you understand the implications of what you’re saying here, what the media’s gonna say about this group and about Iowa caucus voters in the future? You realize what you’re opening up here?”

He quickly tried to walk them back by saying, “Now, do you understand the implications of what you’re saying here, what the media’s gonna say about this group and about Iowa caucus voters in the future? You realize what you’re opening up here?”' I expect Republicans to dislike President Obama, but the religious fantasies they embrace is as terrifying as the first time you saw Linda Blair's head spinning around in The Exorcist.

It doesn't surprise me all that much after a Pew Poll showed 30% of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim back in 2010. However, their religious fantasies are getting much worse as we approach the 2012 election. The Tea Party has had two years to gather their conspiratorial forces together and they will continue with the onslaught of Bircher type lunatic fantasies that the Koch Brothers were founded on.

UPDATED: Think Progress clipped Phillip Dennis of the Texas Tea Party from a segment on Hardball saying Obama might be a Muslim.

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DENNIS: One thing is that President Obama certainly has a soft spot in his heart for Islam. You know, he’s gone back — his first speech was in Egypt, he’s reached out to the Muslims moreso than any other President in the history of the world. He’s even changed our history saying that Islam has always played a major part in this country, when everyone knows that’s not true. You didn’t see our Founding Fathers — weren’t Muslim, they weren’t breaking for prayers five times a day. But this is the type of thing that he’s done, is reaching out. Bowing to the leaders —

MATTHEWS: Where are you on Islam?

DENNIS: … Oh, I have a big problem with Islam. I think that it, uh, they call itself the religion of peace, when every day around the world it continues to show itself to be anything but. So I think those people have a right, certainly it’s understandable that they might have a problem that our President might be Muslim. Absolutely.

Dennis is a fairly major player in the Tea Party movement. He founded the Dallas Tea Party and is the Texas state coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. He is also an adviser to the National Tea Party Coalition. Aside from frequent appearances on Hardball, he writes for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site and has also written for CNN about the “real Tea Party.” He has previously said that “the Tea Party does not focus on the pigment of people’s skin,” but apparently it does focus on people’s religion, as his bizarre rant indicates. (For the record, President Obama has never said that James Madison faced Mecca five times a day.)

It's all going to go down hill from here in the upcoming months no matter how many times the Teabirchers are scolded by Karl Rove.