Learn your history. In his column in Al-Hayat, Jihad Al-Khazin (seen as the expert on the US in the Arabic press) tells the childhood story of George Washington when he cut the cherry tree (wait, was it a potato tree?) and refused to lie about it. The problem with that story is that it never took place, and new biographies of Washington and new history books don't report the story. We now know that it was made up, and we even know the name of the minister who invented the story in his biography of Washington in the 19th century.