Robert Fibbs: NASA Administrator “misspoke” on “Muslim outreach” agenda

Hmmm:

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.

Left Coast Rebel has the video of Gibbs’ remarks.

Doug Powers speculates:

Maybe Obama’s people recognized that announcing a “Muslim outreach” just after telling some NASA employees and others that they’d be losing their jobs due to “new directions” in Obama’s vision for the space program was bad PR, so they decided to roll over on Bolden. I doubt that’s the reason though — Team Obama seems to have a pretty high tolerance for ignoring the will, opinion and outrage of the people.

Whatever the reason for the change of heart, someone’s lying here. Either Bolden or Gibbs. I know who I’d put my money on.