# Why would Obama make such a preposterous claim? \[US one of the largest Muslim countries\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 3, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567 "2009-06-03T12:55:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/21 "2009-06-03T14:14:09Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Umm…I can’t find the quote in the link. And I don’t think Obama has given his Cairo speech yet. [Here’s a link.](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/obama-signals-themes-of-mideast-speech/?hp) Apparently the comment is actually from an interview on French TV, rather than a speech. That makes it much more understandable. He just misspoke. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/22 "2009-06-03T14:20:18Z")
According to this > **[Islam by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country#)** > > Adherents of Islam constitute the world's second largest religious group. A projection by the PEW suggests that Muslims numbered approximately 1.9 billion followers in 2020. Studies in the 21st century suggest that, in terms of percentage and worldwide spread, Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world, mostly because Muslims have more children than other major religious groups. Most Muslims are either of two denominations: Sunni (87–90%, roughly 1.7 billion people) o According ... The US is about in the top 1/3 of nations with the largest Muslim population. But hey, the Egyptians thought that slaughtering pigs would protect them from the swine flu, maybe they’ll believe anything. :rolleyes: It probably helped him to not point out that our rivals in Europe, Russia and China have Muslim populations that positively dwarf our own. Because hey, what he said is ‘technically’ true, and that’s all that counts in politics right? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/23 "2009-06-03T14:24:38Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > From a factual standpoint the comment is technically accurate because of the vagueness of “one of the largest.” It sounds like it means more than it really does. It appears there are 30 or 40 countries with larger Muslim populations than the U.S. Out of 200-something countries, I guess that could be said to make the U.S. “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” So he’s not lying, he’s simply being terribly misleading. That’s much better. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/24 "2009-06-03T14:27:09Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > When you get that far down the list, such commentary becomes utter bullshit. Yes, we have a lot more Muslims than Paraguay, but so what? As I said earlier, it doesn’t mean much. Being that it’s true, it’s not bullshit. If he’d worded it more precisely, to say the U.S. has a significant Muslim population or something, it would have been better. > [@jtgain](#): > > So he’s not lying, he’s simply being terribly misleading. That’s much better. As long as he did something terrible, does it really matter what the terrible thing was? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/25 "2009-06-03T14:29:42Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > [Here’s a link.](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/obama-signals-themes-of-mideast-speech/?hp) > > Apparently the comment is actually from an interview on French TV, rather than a speech. That makes it much more understandable. He just misspoke. That makes more sense. I imagine his speeches are pretty well vetted and fact-checked. I presume he just heard the factoid somewhere and passed it on in the interview without giving it much thought or checking it out. A little sloppy perhaps, but it happens. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/26 "2009-06-03T14:31:25Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > As I said earlier, it doesn’t mean much. Being that it’s true, it’s not bullshit. Something being true and it being bullshit are not always at odds. It’s true in the way all my cousin’s stories about kicking some dude’s ass are true. My cousin likely got a few good punches in, and he probably couldn’t be argued that he lost the fight, so therefore, “I held my own.”, becomes, “I totally stomped that dude.” So, ‘the US has a significant Muslim population.’, becomes, ‘we are one of the most populous Muslim nations on Earth…if you count Iceland and Vanuatu of course we totally kick their asses in the stats!’ So yeah, the United States is in the top 50 Muslim populations in the world with it’s 1% Islam. Hey, at least it can be measured in whole percentage points. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/27 "2009-06-03T14:34:31Z")
It’s funny. For eight years, I said that it was silly to make much out of a politicians’ improptu verbal gaffes, but everyone insisted that no, those errors revealed the profound ignorance and stupidity of the speaker, and each and every one was worthy of outrage (or at least a SDMB ot two). Now, all of a sudden, everyone agrees with me. I wish I knew why that was. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/28 "2009-06-03T14:36:55Z")
I am outraged that the OP said this statement was from a speech Obama gave in Cairo, when in fact it seems to have been from an interview with TV station. Do you think that this statement by **aldiboronti** is utter BS, and will it hurt his standing in the SD community? ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/29 "2009-06-03T14:41:32Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Something being true and it being bullshit are not always at odds. It’s true in the way all my cousin’s stories about kicking some dude’s ass are true. My cousin likely got a few good punches in, and he probably couldn’t be argued that he lost the fight, so therefore, “I held my own.”, becomes, “I totally stomped that dude.” > > So, ‘the US has a significant Muslim population.’, becomes, ‘we are one of the most populous Muslim nations on Earth…if you count Iceland and Vanuatu of course we totally kick their asses in the stats!’ > > So yeah, the United States is in the top 50 Muslim populations in the world with it’s 1% Islam. Hey, at least it can be measured in whole percentage points. _Someone’s_ been reading his Harry Frankfurt… But, speaking of bullshit, why should this off-the-cuff remark bother us? It seems like the motive behind it was to say, in a striking way: Some Muslim countries see us as a force against Islam, but we are a pluralistic country and we are a force against no one. Is this a blameworthy thing to say? Is it bad statecraft to invite other nations to focus on why the United States can be a friend rather than a foe? Is this just yet another cavil from the Right? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/30 "2009-06-03T14:43:04Z")
> [@furt](#): > > It’s funny. For eight years, I said that it was silly to make much out of a politicians’ improptu verbal gaffes, but everyone insisted that no, those errors revealed the profound ignorance and stupidity of the speaker, and each and every one was worthy of outrage (or at least a SDMB ot two). > > Now, all of a sudden, everyone agrees with me. I wish I knew why that was. People “agree” that it doesn’t matter this time, because this time it _ **doesn’t** _ matter. Bush screwed up and outright lied _ **all the time** _, relentlessly. And about far more important things. THAT mattered. Bush WAS profoundly ignorant and stupid; something he demonstrated all his life. And that’s being soft on him. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/31 "2009-06-03T14:43:14Z")
Oh correction, I made a mistake, it’s not even in the top 50. If the 2.8 figure is correct then it’s slightly less than 1% and it’s 53rd on the list. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/32 "2009-06-03T14:44:29Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > _Someone’s_ been reading his Harry Frankfurt… > > But, speaking of bullshit, why should this off-the-cuff remark bother us? It seems like the motive behind it was to say, in a striking way: Some Muslim countries see us as a force against Islam, but we are a pluralistic country and we are a force against no one. > > Is this a blameworthy thing to say? Is it bad statecraft to invite other nations to focus on why the United States can be a friend rather than a foe? Is this just yet another cavil from the Right? Nah, the sentiment is ok. It’s too bad he couched it in bullshit. But hey, that’s politics for you. He could have said we have a large Muslim population that lives peacefully in our nation. But that’s not what he said. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/33 "2009-06-03T15:05:02Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Nah, the sentiment is ok. It’s too bad he couched it in bullshit. But hey, that’s politics for you. > > He could have said we have a large Muslim population that lives peacefully in our nation. But that’s not what he said. I’m not understanding why people are getting their panty’s in such a twist over this. It was an offhand comment during an interview that, paraphrased as noted above, simply was meant to show the US as a country has many Muslims in it who get on fine. Were the words factually incorrect? Looks like it. But then I challenge you to go about life where every sentence you utter is fact checked by millions of people Googling around the world. I suspect we all would not fare well under such scrutiny. Is it a double-standard for Obama versus Bush? Not yet I think. When someone misrepresents how many Muslims are in the US it is hard to compare with suggesting Iraq has WMD and then sending our military halfway around the world to attack said country. Once Obama has compiled a substantial list of false statements and seems to do so with abandon and carelessness get back to us. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/34 "2009-06-03T15:05:37Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So he’s not lying, he’s simply being terribly misleading. That’s much better. He was trying to suck up to the muzzies, and he stuck his foot in his mouth instead. Happens to politicians all the time. Move along, folks, nothing to see here. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/35 "2009-06-03T15:10:37Z")
Muzzies? What, towel-heads is too outre for you? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/36 "2009-06-03T15:12:28Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’m not understanding why people are getting their panty’s in such a twist over this. Simple; the people who do so get wildly upset over everything, as long as it involves a Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/37 "2009-06-03T15:13:16Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’m not understanding why people are getting their panty’s in such a twist over this. It doesn’t upset me, it’s just bullshit. > [@](#): > > It was an offhand comment during an interview that, paraphrased as noted above, simply was meant to show the US as a country has many Muslims in it who get on fine. > > Were the words factually incorrect? Looks like it. But then I challenge you to go about life where every sentence you utter is fact checked by millions of people Googling around the world. I suspect we all would not fare well under such scrutiny. > > Is it a double-standard for Obama versus Bush? Not yet I think. When someone misrepresents how many Muslims are in the US it is hard to compare with suggesting Iraq has WMD and then sending our military halfway around the world to attack said country. Once Obama has compiled a substantial list of false statements and seems to do so with abandon and carelessness get back to us. Yeah, he’s not as gaffe prone as Bush by any stretch of the imagination. Bush made more gaffes in a week than Obama has made in his tenure as of yet. But still, bullshit is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/38 "2009-06-03T15:17:03Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > [Here’s a link.](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/obama-signals-themes-of-mideast-speech/?hp) > > Apparently the comment is actually from an interview on French TV, rather than a speech. That makes it much more understandable. He just misspoke. Thank you for the link to the actual quote in context. The story makes clear the Obama was reviewing and revising the content of his speech – not yet given – and discussing the themes he wants to stress. One of those is that America has a large Muslim population, and as a country we should be in dialog with the Muslim world for the benefit of both. He has not made a “claim”. He is still considering what to say, and the best way to say it. This is an example of a president making informal comments that weren’t intended for release, that got published. I would characterize it as “a bit sloppy”. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/39 "2009-06-03T15:18:42Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Obama must know this is nonsense, so why say it? It’s the first step of a secret Muslim president to make the USA an officially Muslim country, where Christianity is outlawed and Sharia law supplants the Constitution. That’s the most likely reason, right? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567/40 "2009-06-03T15:42:32Z")
Bullshit is NOT in fact bullshit. There’s different kinds of bullshit and it makes sense to recognize that you don’t throw Brand X Bullshit[sup]®[/sup] on a garden that requires Acme Bullshit[sup]®[/sup] and vice versa. If you want to cultivate an idea garden in 'Merka, you need to be using **Ben Franklin’s Homestyle Bullshit[sup]®[/sup]** with its high logic content and common sense appeal. On the other hand, The Obama-lama is exporting ideas to harsher, drier climates whose intellectual soil was long ago depleted of logic. Ideas which rely on cold, rock hard facts will wither in the Middle East, and so a generous mound of **Brothers In Arms’ Emotionally Charged, Wish-Focused Bullshit[sup]®[/sup]** is optimal. And I’m not really being faecetious (see what I did there?) either. A big part of why The ME is so problematic for the west is because we have consistently failed to recognize that what is of supreme importance to one culture is maybe a distant consideration in the other. I think it’s been established that he didn’t deliver this particular shovelful in Egypt, but it would still work. You can’t affect the mind of an Arab unless you’ve won (or lost) his heart. You’ll never have a more dedicated friend or enemy. Downplaying differences and building up the important common ground is vital to peace. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-would-obama-make-such-a-preposterous-claim-us-one-of-the-largest-muslim-countries/498567.md?page=3)