BYRON YORK OMITS A KEY STATISTIC OR TWO

At The Washington Examiner, Byron York explains that of course it's not the fault of the right-wing that so many Americans can't name President Obama's religion, and that double-digit percentages say he's a Muslim. Why, look at the numbers on church attendance!

For one thing, few people see Obama openly practicing any religious faith. After the president did not attend church on Christmas 2013, the New York Times, citing unofficial White House historian Mark Knoller, noted that Obama had attended church 18 times in nearly five years in the White House, while George W. Bush attended 120 times in eight years. Yes, there are a variety of reasons some presidents don't go to church very often, but in Obama's case, absence does nothing to change existing public perceptions of him.

So tell me: As president, how many times has Obama attended services at a mosque?

Should we ask Mark Knoller?

Michael McManus, a socially conservative religion writer, has said that President Reagan "attended church only once in his eight years of presidency." Why doesn't anyone think Reagan was a Muslim? Or an atheist? And why didn't York mention that fact?

Eric Boehlert notes this:

asked in `84 why he never goes to church as POTUS, Reagan said it was because terrorists might blow up the church; http://t.co/SYZ31SXr2t

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) February 23, 2015

So it was okay, I guess.

York insists that Obama brings this on himself:

For example, it would not be a stretch to guess that those Americans who told Gallup and Pew that they did not know the president's faith would remain unsure after hearing reports that at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, Obama explained Islamic State violence by urging listeners to "remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ." Again, many people don't pay close attention to the news, and snippets of reports on Obama's faith, like his remarks at the Prayer Breakfast, could yield a confused picture.

Yes, people are exposed to that quote over and over and over again and are never told -- especially by right-wing media. Somehow, they don't seem to have been told quite as often that Obama also said this in the same speech:

But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge -- or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism -- terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.

Oh, but it must be Obama's fault that that quote isn't reported. It couldn't possibly be the fault of members of the media who had a vested interest in reporting only the Crusades quote, could it?

ALSO, TOO: BooMan is right:

Was Laura Bush Russian Orthodox?

If we paid people to spread that rumor, people would start to believe it.

It wouldn't be Laura's fault, even though we all know that she loves Dostoyovsky, right?

Right?