As the White House embarked on this "new chapter of engagement" between the U.S. and the Muslim world, it changed the presidential job description and stretched the facts. "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States," Mr. Obama told his Cairo audience, "to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He also told an interviewer, "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Sorry, Mr. President, but that's not even a stretch; it's just a baldfaced fabrication designed to ingratiate yourself with your "audience."

The 1,209 mosques in the United States claim slightly more than 2 million members. There are 48 Muslim-majority nations on earth. Even tiny Oman (population: 3.3 million) has more Muslims than the USA, as do more than two dozen Muslim-minority countries. We do have more than Iceland (Muslim population: fewer than 500).

Note to White House staff: These are called facts. He needs to stick to them. Osama bin Laden and the ayatollahs in Tehran (Iran's Muslim population: 63 million) know better, and they see his grasping for approval as what it is -- weakness. Mr. Obama's plaintive promise of "mutual respect" and his Utopian hope that a "peace agreement" between Israel and the Palestinians would keep the Iranians from using nuclear weapons and Islamists from wanting to kill Americans is beyond naive; it is dangerous.

Some of the Sunni Muslims Mr. Obama met with and spoke to in Riyadh and Cairo undoubtedly want to believe that this "enlightened" American president will protect them from extermination by a Shiite Muslim-Persian bomb. Others may even hope that he can help prevent their heads from being removed by bin Laden's minions. More likely, the pragmatic among them will get quietly to work assembling their own nuclear arsenals.

Endlessly apologizing to everyone for everything the United States has done "wrong" or "failed to do" denies the reality of our past and present enemies, and it denigrates the American people. Just prior to the president's departure for meetings with Saudi King Abdullah and the group hug with Muslim leaders in Cairo, an abortion doctor was murdered, and two U.S. soldiers were gunned down in front of an Arkansas recruiting office by a Muslim convert.

Before getting on Air Force One, Mr. Obama took time out to tell a French television reporter, "I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam," and then he ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to start protecting abortion clinics. Too bad he didn't do the same for military recruiting stations.