NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE SLANTED JOURNALISM – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  We rail about press bias here, and today we see a stark example from The Politico.  These "journalists" seem to go about their work completely unembarrassed:

For all the rhetoric about cutting government spending, NASA’s space mission remains sacred in Congress.

A handful of powerful lawmakers are so eager to see an American on the moon — or even Mars — that they effectively mandated NASA to spend “not less than” $3 billion for a new rocket project and space capsule in the 2011 budget bill signed by the president last week.

NASA has repeatedly raised concerns about the timeframe for building a smaller rocket — but the new law expresses Congress’s will for the space agency to make a massive “heavy-lift” rocket that can haul 130 metric tons, like the ones from the days of the Apollo.

Congressional approval of the plan — all while $38 billion is being cut elsewhere in the federal government — reflects not only the power of key lawmakers from NASA-friendly states, but the enduring influence of major contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing in those states.

For instance, a series of stop-gap spending laws had kept money flowing to the man-to-moon Constellation program because Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) initially tucked a provision into a 2010 budget bill — even though President Barack Obama and Congress agreed last fall to end that Bush-era initiative. An internal NASA audit pegged the cost of that move at $215 million over five months.

It's Bush (!!), don't you see?  It's always Bush!

While some praise Congress for pushing the United States to remain a world leader in space science, critics say the national space program is effectively run by lawmakers protecting jobs in their home states.

COMMENT:  I have no doubt, no doubt whatever, that lawmakers are trying to protect jobs in their home states.  Shock.  I also have no doubt that companies do heavy lobbying.  And I also have no doubt that sometimes foolish decision are made, based on political calculations.

But the space program has been one of the most exciting, productive, and uplifting programs in America's history, and the technology from it has improved virtually every area of American life.  It symbolizes American supremacy.  And, to some of us, American supremacy is pretty important.

Obama has de-emphasized the space program, and it isn't only members of Congress who are complaining.  Former astronauts, scientists and editorialists have argued against Obama's shrunken NASA.  Neil Armstrong made an impassioned plea to keep a program that Obama cut.  And Obama's choice to head NASA actually said that his mandate was to improve relations with the Muslim world.  As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that."

But the way the Politico piece was written, you'd think that those who want to forge ahead in space are the real villains, as opposed to the cool rational heads urging a second-rate NASA.  Not good, not good.  This is why people lose confidence in media.

April 21, 2011