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The Washington Post's featured article begins with this: "In the early days of December 1805, a handful of prominent politicians received formal invitations to join President Thomas Jefferson for a White House dinner."
Then they pivot to "the lie"---which is their headline.
"Trump Ends Tradition of Celebrating Ramadan at the White House"
But first. Some good news from yesterday.
- The US Supreme Court says it will hear the case of a Christian baker in Colorado who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his biblical belief regarding marriage. This is a similar case to that of florist Barronnel Stutzman in Richland Washington.
- The Supreme Court also said yesterday that they will "allow" President Trump's travel ban on Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to proceed until a hearing on the matter later this fall.
The Washington Post says this was not uncommon, "Jefferson frequently hosted lawmakers for political working dinners at the White House...almost always commencing at 3:30 in the afternoon."
This occasion, they explain, involved the presence of Tunisian envoy to the US during what they call a "time of conflict" in the Barbary States.
The "conflict" was Islamic terrorist pirates attacking our ships loaded with goods and disrupting America's foreign trade.
Here Lies The Media
The WAPO takes that dinner and the change of time from 3:30 PM to "sunset" to accommodate the Muslims, as a historical fact that henceforth America has celebrated Islam with an "Iftar" or "Eid" dinner....until President Trump came to town.
Warner Todd Huston, writing for Breitbart News says, "The establishment media became upset this weekend after President Donald Trump canceled the 'White House Muslim Iftar Dinner started by Thomas Jefferson.' But the media is wrong in every respect. Thomas Jefferson never held any Iftar dinner and only three out of forty-five presidents ever hosted one, so there is no such 'tradition' to cancel."
Huston says, "All Jefferson did was change the time of his meal. He had no intention of honoring Islam."
In fact, Jefferson had purchased a Koran to study the beliefs of Islam to assist him in trying to defeat the Islamic pirates along the Barbary Coast.
He often referred to them as "Musselmen," rather than "Muslims."
There were no letters of proclamation, in fact, Jefferson didn't even mention the meal in his personal papers and writings.
Jeff Bezos' Washington Post is determined to make one dinner into a "American Tradition" until, of course, Trump ruined it.
Only 3 American presidents have held an official celebratory "Iftar" dinner.
Bill Clinton held the first one, a politically motivated dinner aimed at peeling Muslim voters away from the GOP, because at the time, the Muslim community leaned toward the GOP because of their GOP commitment to religious freedom.
George W. Bush followed Clinton's practice, rightly or wrongly, because he wanted to prove that the US wasn't looking to go to war with all of Islam in the wake of 9/11.
Barack Obama has a natural affinity for Muslims and their celebrations. He expressed this repeatedly during his presidency, often apologizing for America while visiting Islamic countries. I suppose the affinity is understandable in that he spent part of his growing up years in Indonesia in Muslim run schools, lived with a friend in Pakistan for an extended time and deeply believed that America needed to be "fundamentally remade."
Does 3 presidents out of 45 over a time span of 202 years make a "tradition?"
I found it interesting that Wang, who wrote the article for WAPO, revised history on the fly to get her story out.
She quotes President John Quincy Adams as expressing "an air of fascination" about the dinner, without one mention that Adams was extremely anti-Muslim, and known to be so.
In fact, in an article he wrote, he described Islam as a "religion of hate."
He said in part,
"The natural hatred of the Musselmen towards the infidels is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran...The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion is the extirpation of hatred from the human heart. It forbids the exercise of it, even towards enemies...In the 7th century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab...spread desolation and delusion over a portion of the earth...He declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as a part of his religion...The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust, to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature."Those are Adam's own words.
Other Founding Fathers expressed similar sentiments, including Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, the Father of American jurisprudence.
Others agreed, including Ben Franklin and John Quincy Adams--- John Adam's son and 6th president.
Huston makes the point that "During several of his Iftar dinners, Barack Obama also regurgitated the nonsense that Islam is part of our founding and that Jefferson held the 'first Iftar dinner in the White House."
He says there is no better example of "this garbling of the truth" than what can be seen in Obama's own words.
At his 2012 Iftar dinner, Obama said this:
"As I've noted before, Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia---perhaps the first Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago...as some of you arrived tonight you may have seen the Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And that's a reminder, along with the generations of patriotic Muslims in America, that Islam---like so many faiths---is part of our national story."Our Founders, to a one, would disagree with President Obama. It was known across this country as well as across Europe that America was founded on Judeo-Christian teaching and principles.
But truth evolves in the world of secular progressivism.
It was John Adams, Vice President under Jefferson, and America's 2nd President who said, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
In his 2010 speech, President Obama had essentially repeated the same lie, allowing his beliefs and passions to attempt to alter the facts.
To claim that the very first president---Thomas Jefferson--- to authorize war against Muslims would have hosted a dinner to honor Islam is an absurdity beyond belief.
The takeaway
- The Washington Post did not publish this article in obscurity. While many read the Post, newspapers and TV stations across the nation reported and republished the story without even questioning its accuracy---including the Seattle Times, the Seattle PI, CNN, USA Today and hundreds of small cities with small news staffs.
- Yesterday I wrote about, and mentioned on our live radio program that best-selling author David McCullough says in his new historical book "The American Spirit"---"We are raising a generation of young Americans who are by and large historically illiterate."
It was Jefferson himself who said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...It expects what never has been and never will be."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.