Did NASA Get Valerie Jarrett’s OK for Mars Landing?

The Puppet-In-Chief with
Puppet-Master Valerie Jarrett

In his new book “Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,” Richard Miniter exposes an outrageous series of indecisive moments exhibited by Barack Obama during the months leading up to the killing of Osama Bin Laden; an event the President now touts as his finest hour.

The Daily Caller, who obtained a pre-released copy of the book, summarized this breaking revelation:

Richard Miniter writes that Obama canceled the “kill” mission in January 2011, again in February, and a third time in March.  Obama’s close adviser Valerie Jarrett persuaded him to hold off each time, according to the book.

Miniter, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, cites an unnamed source with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning.

Obama administration officials also said after the raid that the president had delayed giving the order to kill the arch-terrorist the day before the operation was carried out, in what turned out to be his fourth moment of indecision. At the time, the White House blamed the delay on unfavorable weather conditions near bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

But when Miniter obtained that day’s weather reports from the U.S. Air Force Combat Meteorological Center, he said, they showed ideal conditions for the SEALs to carry out their orders.

Normally, I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in an “unnamed source.”  However, given the recent allegations against Mitt Romney’s character made by Harry Reid, David Axelrod, and several other Obama campaign thugs, it seems the credibility now assigned to unnamed sources has recently been upgraded by the Democrats.  Therefore, it’s only fair to apply the same standard to allegations against the President’s claims of heroism.

If the allegations are, in fact, true…it would seem the President of the United States may not be the most powerful person in the world.  That designation may well belong to Barack Obama’s White House babysitter, Valerie Jarrett.

Earlier this year, Barack Obama rolled out his 2013 budget plan.  According to the NY Times, the President proposed slashing NASA’s funding, and hit its robotic solar system exploration program especially hard:

President Obama’s budget request for 2013 calls for cutting NASA’s robotic exploration of the solar system by 20 percent, to $1.2 billion, and the Mars program would be particularly hard hit. Already, NASA has withdrawn from a collaboration with the European Space Agency that would have launched the missions in 2016 and 2018, angering the Europeans and disappointing astrobiologists and planetary scientists.

“We seem to have gotten the drastic cuts relative to other parts of NASA,” said Raymond E. Arvidson, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Why?”

Artist’s Rendition of NASA’s Curiosity Rover

Fortunately for NASA, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, which landed the Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars early this morning, took off from Cape Canaveral last November—prior to the President’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget.  It would seem the MSL mission flew under Valerie Jarrett’s radar, and she didn’t advise (instruct) the President to stop it.

As Obama has strained both of his shoulders patting himself on the back for the success of the Osama Bin Laden raid, we ought to consider two ironic facts:

1-  Bin Laden’s elusive location was pinpointed thanks, in large part, to enhanced interrogation tactics that Barack Obama vehemently opposed.

2-  The US military, who actually carried out the mission (sorry, it’s true, Barack), has been an object of Barack Obama’s disdain for years…and has been targeted for billions of dollars in budget cuts by the President.

These two great victories for the United States (the killing of a brutal terrorist and NASA’s incredible technological feat on Mars) have a couple of things in common. 1-Barack Obama opposed the very efforts that led to these accomplishments.  And 2-Barack Obama is more than happy to take credit, once they have succeeded.   It seems if the President had his way, we would have never obtained the intel, nor would we have spent the money to train a force skilled enough to carry out the Bin Laden mission.     Nevertheless, after the mission did succeed, Obama couldn’t get to a victory podium fast enough.  He was also able to shred the memo he had prepared that blamed the military, if the mission had failed.

Now as we celebrate this morning’s unprecedented achievement carried out by NASA, I fully expect we’ll see the President behave in much the same manner as he did following the Bin Laden mission.  Even though the President has showed a blatant lack of support for the space exploration program, he will grab onto the success of the MSL mission, and will be front and center taking credit for this incredible display of American ingenuity.

That is…if Valerie Jarrett gives him permission to take the credit.  I wonder if Obama had a memo prepared to wash his hands of NASA, in case the Mars landing failed…