At Polysigh, Phil Klinkner notes the historical discrepancies between Mitt Romney's alleged statement about Muslims in his cabinet and the history of the GOP:
Mitt Romney is in a bit of hot water over his comments that he would be unlikely to appoint a Muslim to a cabinet post. He is reported to have said:
Based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.
Muslims currently make up anywhere from 0.5 to 2.2 percent of the population of the U.S.
In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower appointed Ezra Taft Benson as his secretary of agriculture, making the first Mormon cabinet secretary. At the time, there were approximately 1.2 million Mormons in the U.S., or approximately 0.75 percent of a total population of 160 million.
In 1969 Richard Nixon appointed George Romney, Mitt's father as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development. At that time, there were 2.8 million Mormons, approximately 1.4 percent of the population of the time.
Does Romney believe that these appointments were not "justified" because Mormons were too small a percentage of the U.S. population? Exactly what percentage of the population do you need in order to claim a position in the Romney cabinet?
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