A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 83% of Americans know a little or nothing at all about the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims. Our president took the opportunity last week to mis- educate them.

In the course of a 48-minute speech, Barack Hussein Obama whitewashed
Islam’s dark history, sugarcoated its violent texts and rewrote
America’s founding as one embracing Islam — all to mainstream Islam and
pander to Muslim voters ahead of the presidential election.

The media described Imam Obama’s sermon, delivered from the musallah of
a Baltimore mosque with a long track record of preaching hate and
supporting terrorism, as a “touching” tribute to tolerance. But in
truth, the speech was a tissue of lies.

Obama mouthed no fewer than 20 flagrant falsehoods during his 5,000-
word speech, including: “For more than 1,000 years, people have been
drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam,
comes from salam — peace.”

In fact, Islam means “submission,” a very different matter. Submitting
to Allah and obtaining submission from others, if necessary by force,
is the great commission of Islam. Peace, or salam, is achieved when the
world submits to Allah’s laws.

OBAMA: “Islam prohibits terrorism, for the Quran says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind.”

FACT: The Quranic verse the president quotes — 5:32 — actually condones
killing those who “murder” Muslims, “wage war against Allah” or spread “mischief in the land.” Mischief is defined as “treason against Allah,”
and the very next verse — 5:33 — calls for guilty infidels to be
beheaded. Obama glosses over all of this in his edited version.

(It’s extremely telling that the president and other Islamic apologists
can cite only one verse in the Quran to dispute the demonstrable fact
that Islam is inherently violent. Even then, they have to dishonestly
abridge that verse to disguise its underlying violent meaning.)

OBAMA: “Islam has always been a part of America . . . Jefferson and
John Adams had their own copies of the Quran.”

FACT: Jefferson obtained an English translation of the Quran not
because he was a fan of the religion, as Obama suggests, but because he
was studying law and wanted to understand foreign laws including
Islamic law. He later went on to publicly slam the religion as anti-
science and anti-reason.

President Adams, for his part, studied the Muslim holy book to gain
insights on the thinking of America’s first Islamic enemy in our out
first war on terrorism — the Muslim pirates on the Barbary coast
terrorizing American merchant ships. He learned that “it was written in
their Quran that all nations who should not have acknowledged their
authority were sinners (and) it was their right and duty to make war
upon them wherever they could be found,” and that every Muslim slain in
battle “was sure to go to Paradise.” (Sound familiar?)

His successor Jefferson sent the U.S. Marines to “the shore of Tripoli”
to destroy the Islamic barbarians.

President John Quincy Adams, moreover, condemned the violent nature of
Islam, noting “the precept of the Quran is perpetual war against all
who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God . . . The command to
propagate the Muslim creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it
can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed
alike by fraud or by force.”

OBAMA: “Benjamin Franklin wrote that ‘even if the Mufti of
Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach to us, he would find
a pulpit at his service.’ “

FACT: Franklin was referring to a Philadelphia meeting hall being so
secular in design it could accommodate any sect. Taking the quote out
of context, Obama made it sound as if another founding father were
eagerly embracing Islam.

OBAMA: “By the way, Thomas Jefferson’s opponents tried to stir things
up by suggesting he was a Muslim — so I was not the first. No, it’s
true, it’s true. Look it up. I’m in good company.”

FACT: Jefferson was accused of being an atheist, not a Muslim. Obama’s
source is a Muslim apologist from the University of Texas who got the
history wrong. She also claims Jefferson held the first “Iftar” dinner
for Muslims in the White House, when in fact he merely hosted a
Tunisian official for the sole purpose of negotiating the release of an American ship his Muslim pirates were holding captive.

So no, Mr. President, you decidedly are not in good company. Try as you
may to revise American history, you remain the first and only
Defender-in-Chief of Islam.

: Sperry, formerly IBD Washington bureau chief, is author of
: "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated
: Washington."


--
BHO has gone around Congress & the Constitution repeatedly, but now
Congress better follow the rules & approve his Supreme Court nominee.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)