by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n NASA chief Charles Bolden, an impressive former Marine Corps major general and astronaut, recently waxed eloquent about his tripartite mission at the space agency he was entrusted with by President Obama. Strangely, his third \u201cand perhaps foremost\u201d objective is apparently \u201cto 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.\u201d This, Bolden explains, is part of the president\u2019s \u201cCairo Initiative,\u201d a reification of the speechmaking he offered to the Muslim world last summer in Cairo.<\/p>\n One\u2019s first reaction: Surely General Bolden does not mean what he said (just as General Casey could not have really meant that a key worry after the Fort Hood massacre was a possible loss in support for the army\u2019s diversity program). First, is the recent record of NASA so sterling that now, in a time of record deficits, we have manpower and capital to invest in public relations with the Muslim world? And if so, why not with Latin America, or the African world?<\/p>\n Second, if the Iranian bomb program, the Syrian SCUD franchise, or Dr. Khan\u2019s nuclear store are any indication, the Muslim world seems quite well acquainted with the potentials of stratospheric research and development \u2014 something we will come to know very soon without NASA outreach.<\/p>\n Third, is it really the business of a government scientific agency to produce historical and scientific narratives for political purposes? And do we really wish to return to the embarrassment of last June\u2019s Cairo mythmaking? In that address, the president misled his audience on nearly every \u201cfact\u201d he presented, from the absurdity of Muslims in Cordoba supposedly serving as beacons of tolerance during the Inquisition (there were essentially no Muslims in Cordoba at the time) to the assertion that Muslims helped to jumpstart the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (when, in fact, flight from or reaction against Islam in the eastern Mediterranean had far more to do with both European intellectual awakenings).<\/p>\n Bolden, like so many Obama appointees, has impressive dossier and yet seems to say some very strange things that put ideology above all else \u2014 e.g., Eric Holder (\u201cnation of cowards\u201d), Hilda Solis (\u201cdocumented or not\u201d), Janet Napolitano (\u201cman-caused disasters\u201d), Ken Salazar (\u201cboot on their neck\u201d), or Steven Chu (\u201cno more agriculture in California\u201d).<\/p>\n We all know that Bolden means well and wishes to get his agency on board with President Obama\u2019s larger plan to create a kinder and gentler image to the Muslim world in order to lessen world tension and reduce terrorist attacks against the U.S. Unfortunately, world tensions are rising, and 2009 saw the most foiled terrorist attempts against the U.S. mainland since 2001, so one can wonder about the efficacy of these approaches, or even worry that they are having the opposite effect of what they intend. But the real problem with using NASA as an arm of the State Department\u2019s current politically correct agenda is that it is supposed to have other things to do.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner NASA chief Charles Bolden, an impressive former Marine Corps major general and astronaut, recently waxed eloquent about his tripartite mission at the space agency he was entrusted with by President Obama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[586],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-ol","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1493,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ministries-of-truth-weigh-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":1509,"position":0},"title":"The Ministries of Truth Weigh In","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Hope and Change Edicts What are we to make of our current NASA chief, the distinguished retired Marine Corps major general and astronaut, Charles Bolden, who, in an interview with\u00a0Al Jazeera, listed a \u201cforemost\u201d NASA objective as finding \u201ca way to reach out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6569,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/overseas-contingency-operations-and-such\/","url_meta":{"origin":1509,"position":1},"title":"Overseas Contingency Operations and Such","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 On the occasion of the outreach from Iran, and the embarrassment in Syria, it is wise to remember why and how our leaders became so inept at dealing with Islamists. 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Pundits cite Trump\u2019s verbal sloppiness and ridiculousness as proof that he must soon implode. But Trump sees his daily bombast as an injection of outrage for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/trumpfinal.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":461,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/storming-embassies-killing-ambassadors-and-smart-diplomacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1509,"position":4},"title":"Storming Embassies, Killing Ambassadors, and ‘Smart’ Diplomacy","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The attacks on the US embassy yesterday in Cairo and the storming of the American consulate in Libya, where the US ambassador was murdered along with three staff members \u2014 and the initial official American reaction to the mayhem \u2014 are all reprehensible,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9396,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-dream-of-muslim-outreach-has-become-a-nightmare\/","url_meta":{"origin":1509,"position":5},"title":"The Dream of Muslim Outreach Has Become a Nightmare","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Affirming Muslim grievances has only increased the Arab world\u2019s sense that Obama is weak. \u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. 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