The John McCain campaign announced today that the Republican presidential candidate has been endorsed by former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe. O’Keefe: “John’s commitment to our national security and to exploration and discovery, coupled with his passion to improve our nation’s math and science education system to assure American competitiveness, should lead all Americans to conclude that he is the right person to lead our country.” McCain’s response: “Sean has been a friend and colleague for many years and I appreciate his support. His leadership during a challenging time in the rich NASA history helped put our nation’s quest for exploration on track.”
The press release notes that O’Keefe is currently chancellor of LSU, and throws in a disclaimer that O’Keefe’s endorsement does not constitute an endorsement by the university. The release doesn’t note, though, that O’Keefe announced his plans to resign as LSU chancellor earlier this month.
(Tangential note: I first found this press release on a newswire service called Standard Newswire, whose logo captured my attention: a stylized version of what is clearly Skylab, along with the words “Connect with the World”. What a space station that deorbited nearly 30 years ago has to do with connecting with the world beats me.)
I like O’Keefe, but in all honesty, big wup.
I would think that this endorsement has more to do with their relationship during O’Keefe’s time in the Pentagon not NASA.
I do think it’s worthy of note that the McCain campaign even bothered to do a press release about this. 99% of Americans have never heard of O’Keefe and have no idea who he is. Such a press release can only have had an intended audience of pro-space voters, especially in Florida. One wonders why the McCain folks did this when the earlier release on space policy was so utterly lacking in substance.
Well, that ought to put McCain over the top.
It definitely locks up the “Sean O’Keefe Was the Second Coming of Jim Webb” vote.
Gee Doug, where exactly did the first presidential dedication to space exploration in a generation come from …. you know, the one you complain has been under funded? Just who was it that was whispering in Bush’s ear?
If you are going to complain about Bush’s obvious under funding of something you think has merit (otherwise why complain about the under funding?) you can’t dump on the original architect of the plan that you feel is under funded.
OK – you can whine now.
Your comments speak for themselves, really. I don’t even need to respond to this.
a (possible) solution for the Ares-1 “vibrations” problem:
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/022novibrations.html
I got an email from someone in the McCain campaign talking about his space policy that I have posted some of at actionforspace.com
Doug: “I don’t even need to respond to this.”
But you did respond.
And your point is….?
Birds of a feather flock together when you’re trying to make NASA the biggest space bureaucracy on the planet.