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Marines battle ruthless Muslim pirates in 1804.

President Obama recently held an Iftar Dinner at the White House for his Muslim friends – and repeated a lie about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Muslims.

According to Obama: “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. And some of you, as you arrived tonight, may have seen our special display, courtesy of our friends at the Library of Congress — 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.”

As usual, Obama isn’t telling the truth about Jefferson or Islam. Jefferson obtained a copy of the Koran in order to study the words of Mohammed, the cruel leader whose teachings had inspired the ruthless Barbary Pirates. These pirates were targeting American shipping and Jefferson eventually sent the Marines to Morocco to deal with them. This event has been memorialized in the Marine Corps battle hymn that refers to the “shores of Tripoli.”

In fact, the U.S.S. Constitution captured one of the ships belonging to a Muslim leader in Tunis. The leader demanded that the ship be returned and sent a temporary envoy to America to negotiate its return. The envoy was Sidi Soliman Mellimelli. He spent six months in the United States and was invited at one point to dinner with Jefferson. Mellimelli told Jefferson he couldn’t attend until after sundown, so Jefferson accommodated his schedule. That hardly qualifies as an Iftar Dinner.

Obama claims this event was the first Iftar Dinner, and has been a “tradition” ever since. There is no historical evidence that this was an Iftar Dinner, nor is there any historical facts that support the claim that this is a long-held tradition by American Presidents. It only became a regular event under President Bush and has now been institutionalized as an annual affair by Obama.

Once again, Obama is trying to rewrite American history to make us believe that Islam has always been a positive force for good in our society. The truth is that our nation’s first foreign war involved Islamic pirates. We’re still fighting the same war, but now the Muslims have an ally in the White House – a man who bows to a Saudi Prince, turns NASA into a Muslim outreach program, and rewrites history to portray ruthless Islam as American as apple pie.

We must fire Obama in November.

Read more on this latest outrage from Obama at the Gateway Pundit and Jihad Watch.