Losing your mom to the slime

This piece by Joe Klein represents some of the best work of his since his eye opening moment with John McCain. But I still have to wonder at this opening paragraph:

I heard about Jerome Corsi's book a few weeks ago from my mother, who said that her great fear--that Barack Obama has covert Islamic associations--had been confirmed by a new book. I told her not to worry, that many reputable people had looked into the matter and Obama was more likely to be spotted in Whole Foods than praying in a mosque. (Since my mother has never been to Whole Foods, so she didn't quite get my wry allusion.) "I hope so," she said, dubiously.

Now, I'm not a journalist. But if I were a journalist of national reputation, like Joe Klein, and my own mother were to say that she had bought into the whole "Obama is a Muslim" crap than I wouldn't be anywhere near as calm as Klein suggests. I would be deeply ashamed at my personal failure as a journalist.