GOP congressman: Obama did order NASA outreach to muslims

The White House is disavowing a plan to have NASA conduct outreach to Muslim countries, but a congressman who talked to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden about that plan last month said the initiative was very real until somebody slammed the brakes on it.

Rep. Pete Olson, ranking Republican on the Space and Aeronautics House Subcommittee, told FoxNews.com that Bolden described the outreach program as part of the administration's space plan during a conversation they had in June.

"He confirmed it to me," Olson said. The Texas Republican said he thinks the program existed until the "uproar" compelled the administration to rethink it.

Though Bolden mentioned the outreach months ago during a speech in February, it drew widespread attention after he described it as a "foremost" priority during an interview with Al Jazeera last month. The administration initially stood by the claim, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that Bolden misspoke and that the outreach is "not the task of NASA."

Olson said that to his knowledge no collaboration with Muslim countries actually took place. He said such a collaboration could raise concern about missile technology falling into the wrong hands. But at the same time, he said NASA doesn't have much classified information to share. He described the agency as a cash-strapped arm of the federal government in dire need of some TLC. His main concern with the outreach program was that it would divert badly needed money away from space exploration.

"The last thing we need to be doing now is spending precious space dollars ... on outreach to any religion," he said. "We need to spend money on human space exploration."

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under the Bush administration, echoed Bolden's comments to Al Jazeera in saying NASA now needs international help to do what it once did on its own.

For instance, a U.S. manufacturer working on a NASA project reportedly is eyeing a Russian booster for its Taurus II launch vehicle. A Russian rocket booster on Saturday was used to launch a U.S. satellite into orbit for DISH Network.

"That's appalling but that's basically where it is," Bolton said, adding: "I'm not sure at this point ... whether there's much in technology that they have to share."

He agreed with Olson that the outreach program was probably a bona fide initiative before Bolden spoke up about it.

"I think (Bolden) was reflecting exactly what he heard the president say," Bolton said.

White House can deny instructions to NASA to reach out to muslim nations, but it can't erase NASA's resulting slide show

Hat tip: Sweetness & Light

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday that NASA administrator Charles Bolden was wrong to say that reaching out to the Muslim world was a top priority of the U.S. space agency…

The White House last week sought to clarify Bolden’s comment, saying Obama wanted NASA to engage with the world’s best scientists and engineers from countries like Russia and Japan, Israel and many Muslim-majority countries.

That failed to end the controversy.

Gibbs, at his daily news briefing, was asked why Bolden had made the comment.

"It’s an excellent question, and I don’t think — that was not his task, and that’s not the task of NASA," Gibbs said…

Meanwhile, we have this February 18, 2010 slide show, ‘NASA’s Cooperation With Non-Traditional Partners’ (a pdf file):

Since when does the U.S. do deals based on national religion?

The latest flap in the blogosphere is about NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr.’s observation, in an interview with Al Jazeera, that President Obama wants his agency to conduct more outreach with what Bolden called “dominantly Muslim nations.”

“He wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering,” Bolden said.

“Fatuousness,” Charles Krauthammer grumbled.

“The space program is being transformed into a tool of Obama foreign policy, which views American national greatness as an anachronism,” Elliott Abrams objected.

Others complained that Bolden had said that Muslim outreach was perhaps his “foremost” purpose, ahead even of space exploration itself.

In a written statement, the White House pointed out that Bolden was just talking about engaging “the world's best scientists and engineers as we work together to push the boundaries of exploration. Meeting that mandate requires NASA to partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries. The space race began as a global competition, but, today, it is a global collaboration."

Fair enough. But I still found Bolden’s comment troubling, for a reason of my own: since when is it U.S. government policy to offer or refuse cooperation with various nations based on the religion their people practice?

How political correctness captured the Pentagon

America’s military is being destroyed by a readiness-busting political correctness (PC) because those wearing stars too often lack the courage to tell their civilian bosses “no.” That lack of courage has led to a long string of cultural PC crises – including refusal to recognize internal threats from Islamists to sex-based absurdities and misguided rules of engagement.

(snip)

The Pentagon launched a Muslim outreach program that gave “legitimacy” to some Islamic organizations promoting an ideology that shares the same objectives as al Qaeda. Soon officials such as then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England cavorted with leaders from organizations like the Islamic Society of North America, a group associated with a covert plan by the Muslim Brotherhood to subvert the U.S.

That outreach program created widespread military cultural fear of being vilified as “Islamaphobic” which explains why the brass ignored important warnings like that delivered by Stephen Coughlin, a military intelligence analyst. Coughlin was hired to “…set aside the feel-good assumptions about Islam … and take an unblinkered look at the facts.” He warned senior officers that there were dedicated jihadists wearing the U.S. uniform. In 2008, Coughlin was sacked as a result of a campaign undertaken by England’s Muslim aide because of Coughlin’s “Islamaphobic” views.