CounterPunch Diary

Obama in Cairo: High Words, Low Truths
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

As they drafted his speech to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo on Thursday, President Obama’s speech writers strove to suggest that cordiality towards Islam is soundly embedded in America’s cultural history. The first Muslim congressman, Obama confided to his vast audience across the Muslim world, was sworn into the House of Representatives with his hand on Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran.
No names were mentioned, but this would have been Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Democrat elected in 2006. On his victory night rally the local crowd shouted “Allahu Akhbar!”. During the race Eillison understandably downplayed past associations with the Nation of Islam.Obama also reminded the world that Morocco had been the first nation to recognize the infant United States, signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, which declared in its preamble that the United States had no quarrel with the Muslim religion and was in no sense a Christian country. The second US President, John Quincy Adams said that America had no quarrel with Islam. (Learn more at)