Watch CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar address the Pew results. Watch MSNBC's Amy Robach almost totally not see how she's being taken for a ride. The intellectual dishonesty on CAIR's part was probably unintentional - legally trained professional spokespeople are often sloppy with their language:

This 1 percent number is being parroted in other places. Ace has an intimidatingly comprehensive catalog of media lying with statistics, but we want to look specifically at this 1 percent argument that's getting thrown around. Here's what Iftikhar said:

Now listen to Robach's original lead-in:

She means 26 percent, but we'll let it slide. She's genuinely surprised when he quotes the 1 percent figure back at her, because she obviously has no idea where it's coming from. Her guess, for what it's worth, is only half right (and not the half that matters). Someone should have prepped her on the numbers, just on the slim possibility that CAIR would try to be intellectually dishonest. As it turns out, the trick here is pretty transparent. A little tip for public relations flaks: if you're trying to mislead people while maintaining plausible deniability, it's rhetorically inadvisable to almost exactly repeat a question, with only your critical change dangling in the wind. For example, if you're on the air and you need to fudge a statistic, you shouldn't repeat most the interviewer's exact phrase - "... that suicide bombings are justifiable" - while obviously inserting your own caveat - "... that suicide bombings would be often justified". It's just poor form.

Robach is talking about the percent of American Muslims who think that suicide bombings against civilians are "ever" justified. That's obvious to anyone who's read the report, but it's also pretty clear to anyone who's trying to understand the plain meaning of her question. The addition of the word "often" by apologists is not an accident. Here are the relevant tables (full Pew report here [PDF]):

The 1 percent figure comes from information outside the table, where the study authors specify that the breakdown for top table's 8 percent "Often/Sometimes" is 1 percent "Often" and 7 percent "Sometimes". So already you've got 8 percent of all Muslim Americans. The "Rarely" column adds another 5 percent. The total is 13 percent, which is the number that gets bundled into the "Ever" column of the second table.

So to be absolutely precise: the total percent of all American Muslims who think that intentional suicide bombings targeted at civilians are at least occasionally justified in defense of Islam is 13 percent. That's more than 1 in 10 - not exactly the comforting "percent of people who think the White House is controlled by Martians" line that CAIR is running.

That's just the rank intellectual dishonesty part of their defense. It's before we even get to what might be an honest debate - whether we should be looking at total respondents or the 18-30 year old bracket. That's on the second table, where the 26 percent comes from - this generation of Muslim-Americans who think that suicide bombings are justifiable. We think there are good arguments for emphasizing this number more than the total 13 percent number. But no one can have that debate because in the meantime apologists won't stop pushing this 1 percent number.

The 1 percent number is relevant only if you think anyone would be comforted by knowing that 13 percent of American Muslims only occasionally think that mass slaughter of civilians in defense of Islam is justifiable, but 1 percent want it to happen often. Since we don't think that anybody can really believe that that's what this debate is about, we're going to go with the "they're being intellectually dishonest" angle. But we're open to arguments about why they might just be egregiously stupid.

References:
* CAIR Rep Reacts to Pew Poll of American Muslims [CAIRtv / YouTube]
* U.S. Muslims reject extremism: Say happy with their lives [Medill Reports]
* Media Spins/Spikes Disturbing Finding That Quarter of American Muslim Young Men Support Terrorism [Ace]
* Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, May 22, 2007

Previously:
* Democrats Renew Effort To Undermine Electronic Surveillance
* Northwest Airlines Caves To CAIR Boycott Threat And Apologizes, MR Caves To Our Worst Instincts And Publishes Conspiracy Theory Bait
* CAIR Protest In So Cal