My guess is that Obama, familiar with the often-quoted fact that the US is the largest Jewish nation, wanted ‘balance’ and came up with this strange notion that the US is also one of the largest Muslim nations. Never mind that it’s completely untrue. I guess we could be charitable and put this down to an honest mistake, were it not for the fact that he’s a politician and, right or left, these guys will always manipulate the truth if they perceive an advantage in it.
Where’s the advantage in such an obvious misstatement, one which the media would pick up straight away? Because the Western media is unimportant in this instance, these remarks were aimed at the Muslim world and they won’t bother about subsequent ‘corrections’.
The notion that the US has the largest (or near largest) population of “X” is common enough. Surprising things like this are often bandied about as fun trivia. For instance I have heard Chicago has the second largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. New York has the second largest Hispanic population outside of Mexico City and the US has the second largest Hispanic population in the world after Mexico. China has more English speaking people than the United States. California has the eighth largest economy in the world all by itself.
So on and so forth. I don’t know if any of the above are really true but they are common enough. So, considering the US is rather large and rather diverse it is not surprising that someone may extend the notion while ad-libbing in an interview. It is true in so many other ways why not here too? Such things are not all that strange in this country.
He has no particular reason to intentionally manufacture this little “factoid”. Sure it sounds better to the Muslim world if the US can say it has a substantial Muslim population making it among the largest such population in the world. However, it still works to say there are 3 million Muslims in the US (which is still a lot) who get on fine in this country and are welcomed.
Do you expect presidents (any of them) to have encyclopedic knowledge of US demographics?
As noted you apparently have not read the thread till this point as that was answered numerous times already. If you did read the thread then why the blinders?
The remarks were presumptive materials for his speech in Cairo, and France has an enormous Muslim population. Address that population and you can be sure that your remarks will circulate throughout the Muslim world.
Who else would be the targeted audience? (And politicians always have a targeted audience.)
And if you’re determined to put this down to sheer ignorance on Obama’s part, be my guest.
The 2.8 million number is from 2001. Eight year old numbers on a population that had a significant upwards trend during the preceding decade is probably not worth accepting as accurate.
Granted, as a Minnesotan, I have the perception that the Muslim population in the U.S. is pretty darn significant - it being 5% of my children’s classes. We’ve been a significant landing spot for Somali refugees, so headscarves around here are normal.
I think people are missing the real outrage here. The very next sentence, which nobody has quoted here, is this:
Dialogue? What??? Understanding??? See - here’s the problem. Sure he may have misrepresented the relative size of the muslim population in the U.S. - but anyone could do that. The kicker here is that he did it to promote Dialogue and Understanding. We all know those are just weasel words for capitulation.
This is avery important misstatemnt. It’snot somethinginconsequential like trying to clam there are WMDs in Iraq, or that Iraq was involved in 9/11 or that Iraq was in cahoots with Al Aqaeda, or that we don’t torture.
He is actually insinuating that Obama is hiding the fact that he speaks Arabic. From a one word thanks to a foreign head of state, and a cll to prayer in 2007.
Listen up republican people, we can not continue this way. We have to have SOMETHING we can parody you with. Everytime we think we have an arrow in our quiver to poke with, you steal it. You’re starting to bristle like a porcupine.
Yes, but generally we rely on figures from several years back for population extrapolations. If you can find something more up to date I am fine with revising my figures. Even 3.2m won’t make us one of the largest Muslim nations, either the smallest of the biggest or biggest of the smallest, but not one of the biggest Muslim populations.
Because people want to say “bullshit is bullshit” which implies it is all the same. As has been shown it isn’t as comparisons to W-bullshit shows all too clearly.
It’s like saying “a lie is a lie” suggesting there are no shades of gray in there. If I am throwing you a surprise party tonight and I lie to you so as not to spoil the surprise is a far cry from lying about, say, non-existent WMDs.
