Obama's Space Cadets Care More about Islam than NASA

Given how poorly Obama appointees seem grounded on earth, it would make sense for them to be better suited for NASA – once also called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Unfortunately, they are so far out in space that even the Hubble has no idea what they are doing and why.

The latest example of the brainless void in the Obama administration (no, not Joe Biden this time) comes directly from the head of NASA. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said recently that the "foremost" mission of our space agency was to make Muslims feel good about stuff they did hundreds of years ago.

It’s not an accident. Bolden had been in Cairo promoting this stupidity, following up on Obama’s speech a year ago catering to the Muslim world. This year’s speech sounds even goofier the more you read it. Here’s Bolden’s quote [1] about the three things Obama wants him to do as the head of NASA:

"One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, 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 ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera. 

Not one of those has anything to do with the “S” in NASA unless the “S” suddenly stands for stupid. We might as well rename NASA the National Aspirational Muslim Brotherhood and Love Association. But those NAMBLA initials are taken by another group Obama hasn’t bowed to – yet.

Bolden tried to make the best of the bad situation by saying we need Islamic help with the space station. Of course there are problems with that. Islamic nations aren’t exactly world scientific powers and the only time Muslims seem good with rockets is when they use them to shoot at Israel. Perhaps, borrowing an idea from Mel Brooks, Obama will put “Jews in Space” and that might motivate the Muslim world to build really big rockets – strapped to the backs of lucky astronauts.

The whole situation only sounds silly because it is. But don’t blame Bolden. His extraordinary career as both a Marine Corps major general, his experience in space and his combat experience with 100 missions in the Vietnam War all point to a both a leader and a man who obeys his commander in chief.

So don’t fault Bolden, fault that commander in chief. Every time conservatives underscore the idea that Obama is not a Muslim, he does everything within his power to cozy up to the very powers that hate our guts and dominate the Muslim world.

ABC’s Jake Tapper, practically the only mainstream journalist to cover the issue, followed up the incident on his blog [2] quoting both a NASA flack and White House spokesman Nick Shapiro talking about “collaboration.” Shapiro summed up the touchy-feely approach saying, “The space race began as a global competition, but, today, it is a global collaboration.”

Bull. Working with other countries can be fine, but since when does America need collaboration in space? Former NASA chief Michael Griffin called the push to make Muslims happy “a perversion of NASA’s purpose.” [3]

When President John F. Kennedy spoke in Houston, Sept. 12, 1962, he inspired Americans to reach for the stars. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard [4],” he told the audience.

Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969, less than seven years later.

Under the Obama administration, America is going the opposite direction. NASA is going from making history to being history. The famous shuttle program is being shut down and Americans are going to have to rely on Russia to get our astronauts into space. That hasn’t set well with some of America’s heroes like former Sen. John Glenn. Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, criticized that plan and said relying on Russia “just doesn't sit right with me and I don't think it sits well with the American people.”

At the same time, Obama boosted NASA’s role and gave them added funds to get involved in climate research. Systematically, he is turning every part of government into a political arm for his liberal agenda.

For 40 years, we’ve been told that space was “the final frontier.” NASA was set up to get America into space. Now, in less than a year-and-a-half in office, we discover that Obama is just lost in space.

Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business [5]and Culture [6]. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum and he can be seen on Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room.” He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.