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Obama Q&A on Reddit briefly knackers entire site

You nerds like space stuff, right?

US President Obama has his fingers crossed for another four years in the White House - and to bolster support for a second term, the Democrat took to Reddit.com for a cosy chat with left-leaning cat-worshipping netizens.

The 30-minute "ask me anything" session ended up being fairly pedestrian even though it garnered 23,000 comments. Obama didn't even break a virtual sweat as the questions mounted up and the immensely popular link-sharing site fell over under the weight of its own traffic. Despite the looming presidential battle with Republican Mitt Romney preying on his mind, the US commander-in-chief kept control of the live online probing by offering comfortable answers to subjects close to his heart.

What did we learn? Well, the recipe for White House Beer is coming out soon and the tipple is, according to the president, "tasty". And, as he was LIVE ON THE INTERWEBS, Obama did offer up this nugget about the online world:

Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too. We will fight hard to make sure that the internet remains the open forum for everybody - from those who are expressing an idea to those to [sic] want to start a business. And although there will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won't stray from that principle - and it will be reflected in the [Democratic Party's 2012] platform.

And he also made some crowd-pleasing noises about space for Redditors feverishly scrolling through the Q&A page in search for replies from Obama.

Making sure we stay at the forefront of space exploration is a big priority for my administration. The passing of Neil Armstrong this week is a reminder of the inspiration and wonder that our space program has provided in the past; the Curiosity probe on Mars is a reminder of what remains to be discovered. The key is to make sure that we invest in cutting-edge research that can take us to the next level - so even as we continue work with the International Space Station, we are focused on a potential mission to an asteroid as a prelude to a manned Mars flight.

The prez signed off by describing his Reddit experience as "NOT BAD!" and added that it was "an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run". ®

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