I’m no fan of Barack Obama. I disagree with many of his policies and believe that he lacks the executive-level experience necessary to be a competent president. However, for opposition to the Obama administration to be successful in the future, it must stop throwing around weird insults.

A new Harris poll reveals that 25 percent of Americans believe that Obama was born in Kenya, 20 percent believe he is doing some of the same things that Hitler is doing and 32 percent believe he is a Muslim.

And this is exactly what’s wrong with the opposition to Obama’s rule.

There are many reasons to oppose Obama’s presidency. Poor management of the current financial crisis, the troop surge in Afghanistan, diplomatic gaffes (who gives the Queen of England an iPod?) and the failure to close Gitmo all come to mind.

However, Obama’s most prominent opponents don’t discuss these very important policy issues. Instead, people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck keep dealing him below the belt blows. And many ordinary folks keep repeating these insults.

For months, many anti-Obama conservatives have suggested that the president was born outside the United States. First of all, this accusation has absolutely no basis in fact.

Second, even if Obama were born abroad, he would be eligible to run for president. The American Constitution says that natural-born American citizens are eligible to run for this office. Under current American laws, all children of at least one U.S. citizen who are born abroad themselves become citizens at birth.

Next there are the inevitable comparisons to Hitler and Stalin. I simply find them distasteful. Obama isn’t exactly invading half of Europe, exterminating entire ethnic groups and sending Bill O’Reilly to Dachau for being a political dissident. Comparing him to Hitler or Stalin offends the memory of the millions who were killed by the SS and the NKVD.

Then there are the Obama as Muslim fears. Where do they get this? With someone who gets this much media attention it seems likely that MSNBC would capture Obama on his prayer mat facing Mecca or fasting during Ramadan at least once.

If Obama’s opponents want to focus on his spiritual life, they could at least focus on his creepy, hatemongering pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Conservatives are by no means the only ones prone to using character assassination in achieving their political goals. Michael Moore and Al Franken are no less demagogical than Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter. Keith Olbermann’s insults towards Sarah Palin were in poor taste to say the least, and Bush, like Obama, was often compared to Hitler by his opponents.

But the Harris poll shows exactly how widespread these weird, demagogical accusations are.

All politicians are human beings and are responsible for policies that are controversial, embarrassing and just flat out immoral. Thus it is the responsibility of every civil society to hold political leaders responsible for their policies and their actions.

Responsible citizens should do this by writing to their elected representatives about their feelings on an issue, joining or forming a civic group and, perhaps most importantly, voting.

In a liberal democracy, every citizen has the right to oppose new policies. Yet using wild accusations and below the belt insults will not be politically effective.