Obamateurism of the Day
posted at 8:05 am on June 10, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
For yesterday’s Obamateurism, we looked at Barack Obama’s Cairo speech for an assertion that Muslims invented the magnetic compass — which the Chinese did first, and the Europeans second before the Arabs. In the same passage, Obama gave credit to the Muslims for inventing printing — for which they have no claim whatsoever:
It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.
“Mastery of pens” might be true, although pens themselves certainly came long before Islam — about 5,000 years before for the cruder reed pens, and 1,000 years before for quills. Arabic calligraphers created marvelous manuscripts, but then again, so did Christian monks, who began that work before Mohammed ever appeared on the scene, and pens and books predate both the Christian and Islamic period. In fact, the Christian monks spent their time copying the books of ancient Greece and Rome.
Printing, however, is another matter altogether. The Chinese developed block printing, which Marco Polo brought back on his travels. The Koreans invented movable type in the 13th century, using metal type a century later. Europe caught up in the 15th century. The Islamic states didn’t have anything to do with the development of printing, which makes this particular claim completely baffling.
Oddly, the print media never batted an eyelash about Obama’s version of history.
Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.
Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
Morning, Ed. :]
bluelightbrigade on June 10, 2009 at 8:07 AM
Why would they? They’re on the dole.
It must be the life to be a WH speech writer for BHO. I mean, they only have to check grammar & spelling. Everything else is stream of consciousness.
bluelightbrigade on June 10, 2009 at 8:09 AM
What can you expect from the products of public school educations? Stuipid is as stuipid does. People won’t challenge him because they are too dumb to have learned the actual facts. They believe that everything that comes off this fool’s teleprompter is the gospel according to obama. He hath spoken so it is the truth!
red131 on June 10, 2009 at 8:11 AM
Obama never lets the facts get in the way of pandering to an audience.
kingsjester on June 10, 2009 at 8:13 AM
Just like their first compass was built to find the so-called “holy” city of Mecca I’d bet their first printing press was built either to print the koran or jihad propaganda.
China invented printing, but Gutenberg invented the first practical printing press with movable type.
wildcat84 on June 10, 2009 at 8:13 AM
Hey, it doesn’t even have to be spelled right as long as it can be read off the teleprompter.
Frozen Tex on June 10, 2009 at 8:14 AM
We don’t see what TOTUS says. Are we even sure about spelling?
pablo5108 on June 10, 2009 at 8:14 AM
You’re operating under the assumption that the print media knows it’s own history :D
Maybe someone at the NYT does, but it’s a really old man who they have wash the kitchen floor every few days.
As per Arabic calligraphy, I like Kufi and Naskh best
blatantblue on June 10, 2009 at 8:16 AM
The same sentence is used twice in a row?
I know this OOTD feature has some awfully low standards, but if you’re going to repeat I think you should at least think about putting some extra days in between the repeats so its less noticeable…
e-pirate on June 10, 2009 at 8:17 AM
I’m sure this is the product of his couple of years in that Indonesian madrassah.
OH, and the Chinese and Japanese also have had world class calligraphy for centuries before Islam. Just glad Dear Leader didn’t credit Islam with inventing the concept of zero, which they borrowed from the Indians.
rbj on June 10, 2009 at 8:17 AM
Oddly? It’s pretty much par for the course. The filthy liar misspeaks and the propagandists of the MSM report it as fact. This has been true for over a year.
The only way the MSM will ever start questioning the filthy liar is if/when they smell blood in the water for his administration and then they will be relentless. Until then the filthy liar can do no wrong.
highhopes on June 10, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Let’s be fair, Muslims are in fact inventing newer and better ways to subjugate their women and slaughter their enemies.
CarolynM on June 10, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Not only that – Muslims were against printing, and it was brought into the Muslim world only in the 19th century.
Phoenician on June 10, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Obama is going to claim it was the Muslims that figured out to use it in conjunction with ones to make the binary system for computers. Thus Islam, not Al Gore gave us the Internet.
highhopes on June 10, 2009 at 8:19 AM
and then there’s this:
http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=940
Phoenician on June 10, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Yup, it was after all Islam that invented the concept of strapping 10 pounds of C4 to a 12 year old then detonating him in the middle of a crowded market place. The Religion of
flyingPiecesindeed…doriangrey on June 10, 2009 at 8:22 AM
Maybe it was one of the Sunday’s he was actually at church listening to Rev. Jeremiah ‘GD America’ Wright, where he learned all about history.
From Trinity Church’s website:
“Africa and her children gave birth to the cultural and educational heritage of the world! ”
pablo5108 on June 10, 2009 at 8:22 AM
Well, you’re right.
For one, the IED was just an INCREDIBLE improvement in asymmetrical warfare (sarc@sarc.com).
That, and burying a woman to her neck and stoning her — VERY efficient.
The cinderblock head drop, also very brief and effective.
Then there is the beheading — that is rather effective, just a slight mess.
You’re right, they have developed and/or perfected many things.
/sad sarc
blatantblue on June 10, 2009 at 8:23 AM
I know it is said that history is re-written by the winners, but this is getting ridiculous!
I thought he would just re-write the past 1 or 2 administrations, not 2 or 3 millenniums.
gonnjos on June 10, 2009 at 8:24 AM
dorian! Please. it’s much too early in the day for mental pictures such as those…
ladyingray on June 10, 2009 at 8:25 AM
The bar for commenters is set pretty low too. But we try not to let your petty rants bother us too much.
loudmouth883 on June 10, 2009 at 8:26 AM
You left out “honor” killings of your teenage daughters because they go on facebook. :-(
ladyingray on June 10, 2009 at 8:26 AM
True
Yea that was very sad
blatantblue on June 10, 2009 at 8:28 AM
I’m not sure why anyone would expect any accuracy in anything the DIC’ (Dolt-IN-CHIEF) says anymore.
Accuracy in any claims, statements or numbers does not serve his agenda.
Yoop on June 10, 2009 at 8:28 AM
I’m wondering whether this came from Obama or his speech writers. Its amazing to me that with all of the gaffes made by Biden and Obama that the team doesn’t have a set of fact checkers to make sure that they don’t make (bigger) fools of themselves. The comment about being one of the biggest Muslim nations, historical inaccuracies, decorum mistakes (bowing, gifts, etc.) and so on, would be embarrassing I would think. I know if I was a powerful world leader that would only happen *once* before someone would be fired and it had better never happen again. This is nothing against Obama per se, just that he comes off as the village idiot while he’s representing the US and makes us look bad/worse.
Policies not withstanding, WH please hire some competent fact checkers.
Geministorm on June 10, 2009 at 8:29 AM
This was one of many reasons I couldn’t vote for Obama. His constant mangling of history during the campaign was worrying to me because it showed me somebody that was truly not interested in history beyond pandering to an audience and would twist historical facts around to suit his needs.
His lack of knowledge about history showed me that he did not have the wisdom necessary to be a leader of the United States. Sad to say, I’m being proven right.
Queasy on June 10, 2009 at 8:30 AM
The OMG (Obama Media Group) always has and will continue to allow Obama to rewrite history for his own benefit. You don’t question God or the Devil.
The problem with it is the more he repeats the lies and they are not corrected, those people uninformed about the real facts of history believe him. And no history book can convince them he’s wrong because the pretty people on the TV didn’t say his a liar.
deadenders on June 10, 2009 at 8:30 AM
This is true. ;)
Still…I’m sure they’re paid well. (Or not? Just to be near The One is enough for some people to wholeheartedly sell out their souls, I guess…assuming they have a soul to begin with…damn, I’m talking in stream of conscious circles…Wednesdays!)
bluelightbrigade on June 10, 2009 at 8:30 AM
This is why liberalism is so potent
Too many people don’t know their history
Thanks to people like Glenn Beck, though, they are getting a crash course in it, and hopefully will wake up and toss the bastids out
blatantblue on June 10, 2009 at 8:31 AM
That’s not true. Glenn Beck’s audience is primarily like-minded people looking for ways to throw the bastards out of power. You won’t catch a liberal watching a show like GB’s because it has too much truth in it and we all know that Democrats (every one of them) are filthy liars.
highhopes on June 10, 2009 at 8:36 AM
Yup, just as vampires cant stand the light of day socialist/liberal/democrats cant stand the light of truth.
doriangrey on June 10, 2009 at 8:38 AM
These aren’t gaffes, history is wrong and should change to match Obama.
zmdavid on June 10, 2009 at 8:41 AM
What difference does this make, really? Our president is either a liar, an idiot — or a lying idiot.
Anyway you slice it, as a nation we’re screwed.
Loki28 on June 10, 2009 at 8:41 AM
“The Muslims actually invented eyelashes, ya know.”
/obama claven
LibTired (KO) on June 10, 2009 at 8:42 AM
The state-run media gauls me. This is their country too,and yet they remain detached,just printing what he says as fact.
I,for one,don’t know how they can look in the mirror every morning.How can they sell their souls out like that?
ohiobabe on June 10, 2009 at 8:45 AM
I think he needs to go beyond Armstrong, Esposito and CAIR to get accurate information on Islamic history – and populations.
forest on June 10, 2009 at 8:47 AM
I expect when Iran finally goes nuclear a year or two from now, Obama will claim it’s OK, because Muslim scientists helped invent the atom bomb during World War II.
jon1979 on June 10, 2009 at 8:48 AM
If the Republican party can remember what made them the party of greatness it will be 1320 more days. If they still think John McMaverick and Semicolon Powell and moderation are the way to go, it’s gonna be a long century.
Tommy_G on June 10, 2009 at 8:48 AM
The Indians may have invented the concept of zero, but it took Jug Ears to personalize it, thereby creating The Zero.
mr.blacksheep on June 10, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Try DIC’ >>> Dolt-In-Chief, or Deceiver-In-Chief, or just a plain old dic’.
Covers a lot of the bases.
Yoop on June 10, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Where did you get the insane idea that they had souls to sell??
doriangrey on June 10, 2009 at 8:53 AM
This was, and is, one of the principal problems with The Zero’s egomaniacal drivel-spews; the other one being, of course, the lack of adherence to commonly accepted logical principles. He makes crap up and then uses it to leap, however illogically, to the conclusion that only increased government spending can solve his straw-man problems.
mr.blacksheep on June 10, 2009 at 8:55 AM
Perhaps in an Obama bankruptcy court?
Yoop on June 10, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Actually, the White House has whole teams of competent folks who survive from one administration to the next. They are usually the holders of the institutional knowledge of how things are done properly. Now whether or not the administration chooses to listen to them or heed their advice is another story entirely.
auslander on June 10, 2009 at 8:58 AM
It’s hard to choose what qualities to ascribe to Obama when discussing these things without the better background an MSM should be ferreting out, but from what we have seen and heard so far, it is pretty clear Obama is very knowledgeable. We also have seen two other things: he is an inveterate liar and he would do and say anything to get his way.
I’m pretty sure he has a good grasp of history and knew he was lying when he included all this BS in the Cairo speech. I’m beginning to wonder if the reason he uses TOTUS so much isn’t because he can’t speak well, but because he can’t lie well.
Dusty on June 10, 2009 at 8:59 AM
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!
So what if he has a predisposition to prevaricate?
He’s so dreamy!!!
/idiots in the media
tru2tx on June 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM
It’s not the blatant stupidity of Obama,or the enormous stupidity of Biden, it’s the media lack of reporting it that’s the real danger here. These morons, as we speak, are laying plans to ruin this country, yet the media is silent.
Jeff from WI on June 10, 2009 at 9:02 AM
Keep holding up that candle in the darkness, Ed. It gives off more light than you may realize. I still want that Obamateurism-a-day calendar for 2010. Can you have it ready by this December? I promise I will buy five minimum and send them to my idiot family members for Christmas.
SKYFOX on June 10, 2009 at 9:09 AM
If the Precedent was as smart as they say he is he would read these speeches and ask who wrote this crap.
thomasaur on June 10, 2009 at 9:10 AM
Why is it baffling? Don’t you know how it works by now?
Obama makes up and says it, after which it becomes official history.
Daggett on June 10, 2009 at 9:11 AM
So this is what it’s like to have a stupid president. For all the grief they gave bush, the news media hasn’t even touched Obama.
http://www.therightscoop.com/jon-stewart-exposes-the-gingrichpalin-showdown/
therightscoop on June 10, 2009 at 9:11 AM
These people (Obama’s crew) are just Wikipedeing their way through this.
Jason Coleman on June 10, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Errors and all.
Jason Coleman on June 10, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Nope. You’re referring to scrolls, not books.
itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 9:14 AM
If I missed this above pardon, but Diophantus, were he alive today, might object to the Arabic world laying claim to his Arithmetica fully proofed developments that al-Khwarizmi, 500 years later, layed claim to as his own, providing only rhetorical proofs.
Any college student knows this to be true. Heck, even Wiki gets it mostly right, although the entries have obviously been combed and prepped for this precise debate.
MarkT on June 10, 2009 at 9:15 AM
…books were invented in the 15th century.
itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 9:15 AM
They would have been hard pressed to invent anything. Muslims do not allow one half of their population to participate in anything other than food prep, sex and raising kids.
Kissmygrits on June 10, 2009 at 9:20 AM
I guess my question about this is simply this: How is this an Obamateurism? Really he can rely on the sort of coverage that makes the intellectual laziness/sloppiness irrelevant? Fact checking and historical accuracy are not relevant to the discussion of any of his pronouncements, and he (and his people) know it. So, they don’t waste energy doing the work of being right. Yes, it is a sad commentary on Americans that they don’t think facts matter, but that is the core issue of politics today. Liberalism accepts facts as malleable for them, and Conservatives see facts as immutable bedrock. Since, for liberals, facts morph so easily, it makes sense that they can focus solely on feelings and not results. This speech and that “slight” inaccuracy – reported exactly as they knew it would be – gave the intended tone and feeling they were trying to give. Their language has no meaning.
WashingtonsWake on June 10, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Didn’t the Muslims invent the internet also? I know Al Gore lays claim to that but I think he is mistaken.
mechkiller_k on June 10, 2009 at 9:23 AM
And the other half are busy enforcing those restrictions.
itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 9:29 AM
One man’s crap is another man’s fertilizer. Obama is just growing his victory garden.
Yoop on June 10, 2009 at 9:32 AM
You got that backwards. Team Obama is posting Wiki articles that support the filthy liar’s statements that show his apalling ignorance of history.
Fact of the matter is that a Harvard-educated lawyer should have spotted these incorrect statement and edited them out of his speech.
highhopes on June 10, 2009 at 9:34 AM
The Taliban give women the credit for inventing the lustful thoughts in their heads. It would be funny if not so sad for the women. Taliban enforcers walking around and if they see a little skin by mistake and then the old Taliban man gets a hard on and starts whipping the woman “you evil woman look what you have done to my penis”.
Ed Laskie on June 10, 2009 at 9:39 AM
From Wikipedia’s Codex entry:
Not that this is necessarily precise, but it is more accurate than you assertion and it supports Ed’s contention.
Dusty on June 10, 2009 at 9:41 AM
Ever notice the middle east factories, farms and orchards are centered in Israel? The Gaza strip is just a military location. Muslims are failures in their own industry. why flatter them?
seven on June 10, 2009 at 9:47 AM
Hey, our founding fathers were all muslim. Didn’t you know that?
Don’t worry – Barry will inform everyone of this fact during his speech on the 4th of July.
Timothy S. Carlson on June 10, 2009 at 9:51 AM
When one sentence in Barry’s much-hyped “major” speech (a speech which he had promised more than a year ago, and for which he had an abundance of time to prepare and fact-check) contains so many obvious and easily verifiable misstatements of facts, why shouldn’t it be the subject of more than one post?
After all, since Obama is comfortable with such “awfully low standards” for his own “major” speeches, the OOTD seems an appropriate place to point this fact out.
AZCoyote on June 10, 2009 at 9:52 AM
Al Gore was Muslim???
right2bright on June 10, 2009 at 9:56 AM
“The frightening thing was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust it’s hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened–that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
-1984
mjbrooks3 on June 10, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Dusty, this was my source:
http://www.lib.uci.edu/libraries/exhibits/tlg/index.php?page=section_1
itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 9:58 AM
Dusty, even if you’re right, I’m also right to the extent that I assert that this is wrong:
since even your earlier date is within the Christian period.
itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Despite their large numbers, Muslims have contributed relatively little to the advancement of humankind, a fact that apparently galls them (and their “all cultures are equally valuable” apologists) so much that they have resorted to blatantly lying about “their” inventions/discoveries in a pathetic attempt to justify their own existence.
AZCoyote on June 10, 2009 at 10:03 AM
What galls me is that no one in this country seems to know he just pulls facts out of his a$$ (and — worse — it seems that even if they did know, they still wouldn’t care). 52% of the country even dumber than Obama.
Dark Star on June 10, 2009 at 10:03 AM
Caligraphy is printing, Ed. One of the earliest forms of it, in fact. That’s why he included the word “pens” with printing.
And yes, it came into existence before Islam, but it was a tradition started by the region that Islam developed in and is an art continued in Islamic culture.
Tom_Shipley on June 10, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Gee I wonder why they have contributed relatively little to the advancement of mankind?
Daggett on June 10, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Actually, I shouldn’t say it was started in the region. I think Obama’s speech is accurate when he said “mastery of pens and printing” in that Islamic cultures really did master the art of calligraphy, turning it into an art form.
This is obviously a reference to that. I’m guessing the Middle East audience knew exactly what he was talking about, while you assumed printing meant “printing press.”
Tom_Shipley on June 10, 2009 at 10:08 AM
That’s quite the understatement. And unlike Barry’s fantasy about Islam, Gutenberg really does deserve credit for feeding the Renaissance.
Buy Danish on June 10, 2009 at 10:09 AM
[itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 9:58 AM]
I read that as “books printed on paper” as opposed to books, of which one example, in the photo to the right of the text I quote, is a book holding a collection of early Gnostic texts discovered in 1945. Having read your source, it’s obvious the definitions for book not the same between them.
Dusty on June 10, 2009 at 10:15 AM
[itsnotaboutme on June 10, 2009 at 10:02 AM]
I agree with you there, as much as I’ve looked into it, which wasn’t much.
Dusty on June 10, 2009 at 10:20 AM
As far as the MSM is concerned, if Obama says it, it’s true. Cuts down on all that messy, tedious research stuff.
GarandFan on June 10, 2009 at 10:24 AM
The Dept of Ed will have to put this into next years elementary text books. If you tell a lie so many times it becomes the truth. Its amazing what main stream people think is true. They get their reality from TV and the Movies. Al Gore made a career out of the lie of the monster Vietnam baby killer. If we believe him then he should be put up on war crimes. Him and a bunch of guys who never saw action claiming to be given orders to kill women and children. And today people still have the image of the Vietnam vet as some kind of monster, and he made it to VP. It makes me sick of the continuous lies these people throw up. They should be made to eat their own vomit words and choke on it.
Ed Laskie on June 10, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Dept. of Education just announced that new text books will show we actually DO have the 57 states Obama told us about. While unnamed as yet, new flags will be issued.
Jeff from WI on June 10, 2009 at 10:42 AM
They haven’t made a positive contribution, but they are wildly successful–like a virus is. Unfortunately for all, they too ultimately destroy their host, and can only survive by moving on to another land that is uninfected.
Where traditional Islam is a majority, those societies are impoverished and backward, with the exception of those who have oil.
JiangxiDad on June 10, 2009 at 10:43 AM
I still love the statement in the Cairo speech about how the Israelis need to improve the situation in Gaza. Insinuating that the Israelis were still in charge in Gaza. I laughed my bum off, considering the Israelis left Gaza in 2005. Even recent history is above this administration’s “pay grade.”
mjk on June 10, 2009 at 10:53 AM
But he’s a “student of history”.
With failing grades, no doubt.
landshark on June 10, 2009 at 11:08 AM
The Wikipedia article on printing supports its claims of Arabic Egyptian wood block printing with a link to MuslimHeritage.com. Same with the article on fountain pen. I don’t know how reliable that is as a source; the only explanation I find about them is that they started with a “People Award” for promotion of biomedical science.
HotWeaver on June 10, 2009 at 11:14 AM
It’s almost like Obama is Chekov, giving credit for every great invention to his own people.
As in, “The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow.” Of course, when Chekov does it, it’s supposed to be funny.
tom on June 10, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Israel files more patents than all the Muslim-controlled countries combined – even though they are outnumbered by a hundred to one.
logis on June 10, 2009 at 11:49 AM
GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!
If Obama says something it is by MSM definition correct. ANy previous facts, history, raw data,… are incorrect and NOT Obama.
In fact SecDef Robert Gates has now had his name retroactively changed to Bill.
jukin on June 10, 2009 at 11:49 AM
Yes. His own people, and himself.
Loxodonta on June 10, 2009 at 11:53 AM
The title of that article is “Muslim Printing Before Gutenberg.” But if you read it, all it says is that Muslims had block printing before Gutenberg invented the moveable-type printing press.
That’s like bragging that Muslims used the wheel before Henry Ford made automobiles. I suppose you could say it’s technically “true,” but it doesn’t actually do anything at all to prove the point that Obama is so fanatically trying to make.
logis on June 10, 2009 at 11:56 AM
Is tomorrow’s OOTD going to have something to do with this? If so, that speech must be full of Obamateurisms, and you won’t have to search for quite a while.
Keep it up, Ed.
ConservadorRebelde on June 10, 2009 at 12:03 PM
NO PROBLEM…2010 is just around the corner. :-) The OBOT Truants, Luddite’s, Troglodyte’s and HUFPO Minions have no place to turn, BOBO is flip flopping so fast their heads are spinning!!;-) TRUE TRANSPARENCY. lol Now Wright has started spewing his hatred again. The wheels on the bus go round and round! Obama can’t even keep his own facts(sarc) straight.
Eagles Dominion on June 10, 2009 at 12:07 PM
Makes me wonder where Obama is getting his talking points.
commenter on June 10, 2009 at 12:13 PM
I used to wonder; but I don’t anymore.
During Obama’s mad scramble for power, it was always possible he was just parroting whatever inane trope he thought might mollify one special interest or another. But now that he’s sucking up to people who can’t possibly vote for him, his words can only come direct from the heart.
logis on June 10, 2009 at 12:49 PM
[logis on June 10, 2009 at 11:56 AM]
Yeah. If you check the entry on Woodblock Printing – meaning mechanical replication of designs, whether letters or illustrations — first use in China around 220 AD looks to be the earliest.
Dusty on June 10, 2009 at 12:55 PM
The left never lets the facts get in the way of propaganda…
Wolftech on June 10, 2009 at 1:14 PM
rwenger43 on June 10, 2009 at 1:23 PM
You don’t need to KNOW history when you ARE history. Messiah clearly believes that what came before no longer matters. HE is the future.
n0doz on June 10, 2009 at 1:37 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »