In his much-ballyhooed speech of June 4, President Obama spoke in soothing terms of all the areas where Islam and the rest of the world could find common ground. His speech was praised by many in the media and the political class, but criticized by some students of the history of the United States and the Islamic world. Most shocking to students of American history is the way the President implied that Thomas Jefferson had been on comfortable terms with Islam.
In his speech President Obama said “when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Qur’an that one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, kept in his personal library.” (The congressman the President is referring to is Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who first took the oath of office in January of 2007.)
