Barack Obama celebrates his 49th birthday today. Or so he claims. According to a CNN survey, more than a quarter of Americans doubt that Obama was born in the United States; 29% say he probably was; and a mere plurality of 42% have no doubt. This despite widely reported empirical documentation of the President’s birth in Hawaii in 1961, contemporary newspaper reports of his birth and the dismissal of birther rumors by Hawaii’s Republican governor. Speaking of which, big shocker, there’s a partisan divide in the findings: 41% of Republicans believe Obama probably or definitely was not born here, next to (a not entirely comforting itself) 15% of Democrats.

There is no reasonable basis to believe Obama was born outside the U.S.; a lot of people believe it anyway. People like to think that, if only the media did its job better, if only facts were more widely reported, myths and misinformation would be dispelled. It’s part of the premise of media criticism. But news like this makes me wonder if that’s wholly true. I’m not sure if, today, there is a system of reporting that can dissuade people from believing what they want.