WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH disavowed the Holy Land Foundation last week, he said that the foundation’s actions were “an affront to millions of Muslim Americans.” The New York Times says there are “six to seven million Muslims living in this country.” Most other newspapers and wire services report the same thing (perhaps because the Society of Professional Journalists recommends these numbers).

From reading the papers and listening to fawning public officials, it seems as though Muslims are everywhere in America. But at the same time, it certainly doesn’t feel as though we’re living in an age of Islamic ascendancy here in America. So how many Muslims are there? The indispensable Statistical Assessment Service (go ahead and bookmark their site, Stats.org, it’s worth it) has sorted through the numbers for us in an essay entitled “A Question of Numbers,” by senior analyst Howard Fienberg. And as it turns out, while there may be no definitive number, “six to seven million” is a gross exaggeration.