“Worst Kind of Group Therapy Psycho-Babble”: Charles Krauthammer Slams Obama’s NASA Muslim Outreach Program (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on July 10, 2010
The “worst kind of group therapy, psycho-babble, imperial condescension, and adolescent diplomacy”… well said, Mr. Krauthammer.
I was a Girl Scout leader some years back, and a few liberal mothers were upset that I’d conduct games or contests within the troop that had clear-cut winners and losers. These gals felt ALL the girls should win (well, their daughters, anyway), since that would make them feel better about themselves and protect and stroke their fragile little egos. They glazed over when I gently countered with the realities about “the real world” of competition not ever bending over backwards to reward or promote underachievers, that true competition brings out the best in all of us to work harder, smarter to improve our skills, talents, knowledge, and contributions. Making everyone a “winner” would do all the girls a disservice, making them soft, keeping them from ever reaching their true potential while discouraging the achievers.
What a cold-hearted bitch of a Nazi drill sergeant she is, I’m sure at least one was thinking.
These women are likely now applauding Team Obama’s jaw-droppingly stupid decision to use NASA as a bleeding hearts’ outreach program to help Muslims “feel better” about their “contributions” to science, engineering, and math. Who cares if they make any legitimate, actual contributions? At least they FEEL better.
Bravo, Charles… I love this guy.
FOX: Charles Krauthammer Slams Obama’s Infantile NASA Muslim Outreach Program | July 2010
From Peter Andrew, Conservative American, Obama Tells NASA: Make Muslims Feel Better!:
Obama’s New Job Description for NASA: Make Muslims Like Us!
Forget returning to the moon. Don’t even mention the Constellation Ares rocket. And why waste time on the idea of heading to Mars? Obama’s NASA Chief says his number one job is “to improve relations with the Muslim world!!”
OMG! We wish we were kidding!
From Gateway Pundit, Former NASA Astronaut Cernan: If Head of NASA Believes Muslim Outreach Crapola He Needs to Resign (Video):
Former astronaut Gene Cernan condemned NASA Chairman Bolten for his lunatic comments this past weekend on Aljazeera. Bolten told the Arabic Channel that the top objective of NASA is to make Muslims feel better about their scientific and mathematic achievements from hundreds of years ago.
NASA Astronaut: If Head of NASA Bolden Believes Muslim Outreach BS, He Should Resign | July 2010
More from Krauthammer, as posted in Washington Post:
…Apart from the psychobabble — farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer — what’s the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far — but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.
Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence — lauding, for example, Russia’s contribution to the space station. Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the United States to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.
[...]
It’s fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one’s country. But Obama’s modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.
It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America’s sins and the world’s to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the word “I.”
Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as “my” — “my secretary of homeland security,” “my national security team,” “my ambassador.” The more normal — and respectful — usage is to say “the,” as in “the secretary of state.” These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution — not just the man who appointed them. …
Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence — yet not of his own country’s.
From Creeping Sharia, Former NASA Director Says Muslim Outreach Push ‘Deeply Flawed’:
Looks like we were way ahead of this one when we posted, Obama cuts US space program, orders NASA to work with Muslim countries, back in February.
The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as “deeply flawed” the idea that the space exploration agency’s priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.“NASA … represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity,” Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.
Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships 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.”
Officials from the White House and NASA on Tuesday stood by Bolden’s statement that part of his mission is to improve relations with Muslim countries — though NASA backed off the claim that such international diplomacy is Bolden’s “foremost” responsibility.
Griffin said Tuesday that collaboration with other countries, including Muslim nations, is welcome and should be encouraged — but that it would be a mistake to prioritize that over NASA’s “fundamental mission” of space exploration.
From US Constitutional Free Press, NASA to boost Muslim self-esteem?:
I don’t mean to be culturally insensitive but which Muslim (Arab) assisted Isaac Newton in writing his seminal work on gravity “The Principia?” Or perhaps helped Einstein get over the rough spots in writing his General Theory of Relativity?” Or helped Max Born and others develop quantum mechanics? Or whispered in the ear of Robert Goddard when he was inventing the liquid fueled rocket?
Science is a process. It builds upon the work of those who came before. The last significant contribution by Arab scientists to spaceflight probably occurred in the medieval period. And even those contributions were almost exclusively based on the work of ancient Greeks. To their credit, the Arab Muslims probably gave a boost to the scientific revolution that swept Europe during the Renaisance by their rescuing the ancient works of the Greeks from the ravages of the European Dark Ages as well as developing a rudimentary scientific method for solving problems.
But why NASA? Why not let the State Department “reach out” to the Muslim world and make them feel better about being left behind when the scientific revolution culminated in manned spaceflight?
One might note that the Iranian bomb is being developed by scientists almost exclusively educated in the west, as well as western educated scientists from Pakistan and North Korea, with the possible assistance of Russian engineers. Those educated in Muslim countries are using texts written by westerners, and are doing science that was first performed in Europe and America.
UPDATE… excellent list of Obama’s gaffes on Muslim achievements at Gateway Pundit: Obama’s NASA Muslim Strategy Echoes His Nutty Cairo Speech
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