You just can't make this crap up.      
      
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   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-   
   task-nasa/   
      
   Muslim Outreach Not the Job of NASA, White House Says   
      
   White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that NASA    
   Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera    
   last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim    
   countries.    
      
   "That was not his task and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said.    
      
   Bolden, though, said last month in the interview that it was President    
   Obama who gave him that task. He made a similar claim in February.    
      
   The White House also backed up Bolden last week when his remarks first    
   stirred controversy. A White House spokesman last Tuesday said Obama    
   wants NASA to engage with the world's best scientists and that to meet    
   that challenge, NASA must "partner with countries around the world like    
   Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many    
   Muslim-majority countries."    
      
   NASA last week walked back Bolden's claim that Muslim outreach was the    
   "perhaps foremost" plank of his mission, saying that Bolden was merely    
   talking about his "outreach" responsibilities and that space exploration    
   is still NASA's No. 1 job.    
      
   But Gibbs on Monday appeared to deny that Bolden was asked to focus on    
   Muslim outreach at all.    
      
   Asked whether Bolden misspoke, Gibbs said: "I think so."    
      
   He said he wasn't aware of Obama speaking to Bolden about his comments.    
      
   The Muslim comments were met with a wall of criticism last week from    
   conservatives and former NASA officials who said that while Muslim-   
   nation outreach is laudable, it should not be a NASA priority.    
      
   Bolden said in the interview that 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."   
      
   CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999    
   Democrats --  The party responsible for the housing meltdown ....   
      
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