Category Archives: Political Commentary

If Mollohan Goes Down…

As looks exceedingly likely, who would replace him as chairman of the house appropriations committee for NASA?

If he goes down as part of a big GOP sweep that restores them to a majority, then presumably it would be Frank Wolf, who might be favorably disposed to commercial, given that Wallops is in his state, though not his district. Culberson taking over would be a disaster, given some of the ignorant comments he’s been making about the new plan.

But if Mollohan loses, but the Dems retain control, who would replace him? I hope it wouldn’t be Chaka Fatah, but I think he’s the most senior member, other than Obey (whose seat is also shaky). None of them have much NASA in their districts, other than Schiff (JPL).

Anyway, none of this would be as big a problem as Dick Shelby replacing Barbara Mikulski, from the standpoint of getting something useful out of NASA.

But if anyone has better insight than me (probably not hard), please chime in.

A Green Tea Party

That’s what Pulitzer-Prize-winning authoritarian-government admirer Tom Friedman thinks the Tea Partiers should form. I always love this:

I’ve been trying to understand the Tea Party Movement. Sounds like a lot of angry people who want to get the government out of their lives and cut both taxes and the deficit. Nothing wrong with that — although one does wonder where they were in the Bush years.

They were there all along, and few of them were very happy about the spending, but they weren’t idiotic enough to think that the Democrats would be better. And sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.

Anyway, I think that what Beijing Tom really wants is a watermelon tea party.