THE PRESIDENT SAID WHAT!?

President Obama’s recently gave a historic (apparently everything the guy does is historic) speech in Cairo. Like President Bush in similar speeches, Obama went out of his way to praise Muslims, but to the best of my knowledge Bush didn’t just make stuff up. President Obama described himself as a “student of history” and went on to tell some real whoppers.

According to Mr. Obama we can thank the Muslims for arches, spires, poetry, music, algebra, calligraphy the compass, printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and can be healed and most remarkably their religious tolerance and racial equality. Where does he get this stuff? Remember that there were no Muslims until the 7th century and the Romans had arches and spires before the birth of Christ. Poetry, I’ll give them that one if Kahill Gabran was a Muslim but on music I’m doubtful since some Muslim communities forbid musical instruments. I’ll throw in calligraphy, who really cares after all what the impact a lack of Islam would have had on the world’s wedding invitations. Algebra and the magnetic compass are a little more useful and I assure you neither were a gift to the world from Islam. The magnetic compass was a Chinese invention a version of which might also have been discovered by Central Americans. The first people known to use Algebra were the ancient Babylonians and the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese and the Indians all had their versions of this mathematical process before Islam existed. If Islam ever had any innovations in disease control or printing they didn’t make a big splash in the world with their insights.

Finally, religious tolerance and racial equality, give me a break! I have often heard from smart people I trust that Islam is a religion that has often been spread by the sword. I know that there are countries on our planet today where the punishment for converting from Islam to any other religion is death. That seems to suppoprt the "spread by the sword" claim.

Hey Mr, President, how about saying something positive about the country that elected you just for a welcome change of pace.