White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S. - NYTimes.com

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S. - NYTimes.com: "When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them. After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign, never visiting an American mosque and describing the false claim that he was Muslim as a “smear” on his Web site.
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Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Rashad Hussain, 31, a White House lawyer, was appointed to become the United States’ special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Tariq Ramadan, who was barred from the United States under President George W. Bush, spoke to a New York audience in April.

Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised."