A front-page article in today’s Washington Post examines how House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has begun to suffer from the ethics allegations that have dogged him for months. DeLay has adopted a lower public profile, eschewing the joint news conferences held by the Republican leadership, and has encountered fundraising problems “as businesses fret that DeLay may be radioactive.” The article doesn’t get into details about how these problems may affect his ability to influence legislation, but as this situation wears on supporters of NASA have to be concerned that one of their most powerful patrons may not be able to lend as much support to the agency as in the recent past. (To underscore this point, at the WIA breakfast meeting last week NASA administrator Michael Griffin awarded a NASA Exceptional Service Medal to Juliane Sullivan, who had served as a policy director to DeLay.)
Looks like a trial by media.
The Washington Post article has curiously omitted these recent events:
One of the easiest ways for a government program to look completely undeserving is for it to crucially depend on Tom DeLay’s support.
As for Bush, Rove, and Hastert defending DeLay: That’s no surprise. I’m sure that Governor Perry backs him too. Fortunately Texas still has an independent judiciary.
“Fortunately Texas still has an independent judiciary.”
Unfortunately, it isn’t neccesarily an “impartial” judiciary.
My impression is that the jihad against Delay is starting to fall apart. His Democrat enemies have just started to realize that a myriad of their members have done far worse than the Majority Leader, and thus will also have to answer to the newly reconstituted Ethics Committee. The question is: How many of their own will the Dems want to sacrifice to get Delay?
Maybe DeLay will get off the hook, who knows. Even so, if NASA really needs DeLay to explain why it deserves its money, then it doesn’t deserve its money.
Greg, I guess that’s a difference between thee and me. Some people I guess would stop taking showers if Tom Delay or George Bush came out for cleanliness.
If Bill Clinton were to come out for the VSE, as much as I depise him and as much as I would wonder where that additude was during his Presidency, I would not all of the sudden turn against it just because he was for it.
“Maybe DeLay will get off the hook…”
Someone has already determined that he is guilty of something?
Mark,
There’s all the difference in the world in accepting a Congressman’s support and needing it. Especially if that Congressman is Tom DeLay. If JSC gets to the point of biting its nails just because DeLay is under investigation, that goes way beyond simple endorsement.
I really don’t care if DeLay (much less Bush) thinks that taking a shower is a good idea, because showers will work as well with or without their endorsements. Or if it’s a government program, it should survive on its merits, not on the political fortunes of its backers. So why does Washington think that JSC is so much more worthy if it’s in DeLay’s district?
Let me add that I haven’t changed my mind about JSC in 15 years — it’s a colossal distraction from NASA’s useful activities. So there is nothing “sudden” about this. I just note that if JSC is now a DeLay patronage project, then the wolf is guarding the fox house.
>Looks like a trial by media.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Let me add that I haven’t changed my mind about JSC in 15 years — it’s a colossal distraction from NASA’s useful activities.
Dear Greg:
Shut up.
Sincerely,
Nick Lampson
NASA, the political wonderchild of the ’60’s, has not changed that much. The CAIB report cited 8 missed opportunities and the Apollo 13 report cited 11 missed opportunities. That’s about a 30 percent improvement. The problem is not that NASA changed. In fact it is 30% better. The Apollo independent, redundant design as Astronaut Lovell pointed out simply allowed success where the shuttle had to be but could not be perfect – no independent redundancy. Just my opinion, but we never learned the Apollo 13 lesson. Arnie Aldrich in Challenger testimony cited how NASA was still the same and needed more lesson learning. The problem is NASA has not changed. GM was the same way.
The Wright brothers, after the one brother died, returned to flight, but never really returned to success. Perhaps there is a lesson there for NASA – actually the politicians – that returning to flight is not necessarily returning to success.
But all in all, what a political tug of war the little wonderchild, still in a diaper, is growing up to be. Its comfortable little be be (blanket) has been torn in bi-partisan jubilation into shreds.