July 10th, 2010
Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve.
By Charles Krauthammer, National Review Online
Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Obama’s vision of NASA’s mission, as explained by Administrator Charles Bolden:
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.
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, and won far more Nobel Prizes than any other nation — 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 contributions 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.
For good measure, Bolden added that the U.S. cannot get to Mars without international assistance. Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of President Kennedy’s pledge that America would land on the moon within a decade.
and while we're spending a few moments "exposing Obama", here's another one for the books:
‘American Taliban’ Lawyer Heading Suit Against Arizona
July 10th, 2010FoxNews.com
The federal prosecutor tasked with quarterbacking the Obama administration’s high-profile case against Arizona’s immigration law is no stranger to controversy or the limelight.
Justice Department attorney Tony West is a member of the so-called "Gitmo 9" — a group of lawyers who have represented terror suspects.
West, the assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Division, once represented "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, a controversial move that West feared would derail his political ambitions and helped delay his nomination to the department for three months in 2009.
He helped negotiate a 20-year sentence for Lindh, an American citizen who was 21 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. Under the deal, Lindh avoided a life sentence by pleading guilty to serving in the Taliban army and carrying weapons, and the government dropped its most serious charges, including conspiracy to kill Americans and engaging in terrorism.
Expose Obama (and his administration)
