Mineta saved by illness

TownHall.com ^ | 2/01/03 | Robert Novak

[NormsRevenge]

If he gets fired, will they take his name off of the airport here in San Jose? Please!!

71 and in his shape .. Now is the time for him to just step aside.

[henderson field]

Norman Minetta should be put in an internment camp just like his subversive parents were.

[Publius]

I got word from Texas tonight that Dubya is planning on a major federal infrastructure program to be announced this spring as a way to get people back to work. (Shades of FDR!)

There will be a major rail component to this program because the Defense Dept. has declared 30,000 miles of track to be critical to the national defense. Word is that the future of Amtrak will be tied to this initiative, i.e. there will be massive amounts of federal pork for the Class I railroads to rebuild if they form a consortium to take Amtrak from the government and run it privately.

There are couple of names in the air for Mineta's replacement. Tommy Thompson is one. (He badly wanted the job two years ago.) Another is Gil Carmichael, chair of the Amtrak Reform Council and confidant of both Bushes.

Something big is brewing.

[NormsRevenge]

"Something big is brewing."

Maybe this infrastructure thing will help make it easier to move the center of Government to the mid-continent away from the coast. It would be a shame to let all those Amtrak rail properties go to auction for a pittance.

Re: govt relocation.. Isn't that why the new Denver airport was built?

[Publius]

I don't know about moving the center of government, but if the Class I's bought out Amtrak, its headquarters would move from DC to Chicago. Frankly, I've been urging this for over a year, and I hope it happens.

[Publius]

Ping.

[river rat]

Good Grief!
It looks like stupidity is an incapacitating disease...

Mineta, was CLEARLY over his head and incompetent to a embarrassing degree..

Semper Fi

[PhilDragoo]

Although Transportation officials say Mineta runs the department from his hospital bed, the work is really being done by Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson (a protege and former aide of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card).

A good move giving him the staph. My continued channeling of Sidney Gottlieb is paying off.

Memo to Norman Mineta:

We are threatened by the Iraqi Hirohito and you give him aid and comfort.

Listen to the staph briefing and quit now.

[river rat]

a = an

[Publius]

Mineta was CLEARLY over his head and incompetent to a embarrassing degree.

Yes, and it was so obvious that I was surprised he lasted this long. Tommy Thompson begged for the job, and Bush gave it to a nonentity from San Jose. The man had no idea what his job entailed, and he waited for Andy Card to tell him when to go to the bathroom.

Good riddance.

[NewYorker]

I love taking the train to Boston and Washington from NY and avoiding the airports. It's a real mystery how this great business can be so badly run but it always has been.

[JoeSixPack1]

Something big is brewing.

Sounds like a giant pork roast.

[bonesmccoy]

Your comment is about as flippant and nonsensical as they come. You should read Proverbs. It's good for you!

[JoeSixPack1]

PS. 30,000 miles of track cross's the USA 10 times!! That's a lot of track!!!!!

[bonesmccoy]

Mineta knows more about transportation and federal policies on aviation than Thompson. The President made a good choice in Mineta. He's doing his job... and your hearsay about his illness is at minimum cold-hearted and at most a cheap shot.

[djr]

So that's where this pandering pc name came from. My own pet peeve can be found at http://www.sjsu.edu/. I just can't get enough of that tilde in San Jose State University - adds such a pleasant 3rd world touch to the wannabe university of Silicon Valley.

[Bonaparte]

"Members of Castle's group are particularly irritated that Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a co-sponsor of the campaign finance reform act, was passed over as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee though he was next in seniority."

He sacrificed his seniority when he stood by Clinton during the impeachment vote. Plus, it would hardly be wise to have somebody like Shays chair a committee whose object is to reform government.