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Bill Clinton inherited a discredited International Space Station on the edge of cancellation and gave it a social purpose to which moderates in both parties could subscribe -- helping to tie the Russians into the global economy.

This is one of the most ridiculous statements in this article. Clinton turned NASA into a propaganda arm of his administration. The inclusion of the Russians led to delays and a corrupt transfer of money from the US to a post cold war Russia that wound up lining the pockets of the Russian mobsters. Any serious space analyst knows what a joke that was. Clinton "Klintonized" all of NASA, turning it into an organization that served klinton's propaganda purposes and wasn't held accountable during his reign. This environment was responsible for creating the huge cost overruns of the ISS. Klintoon left a big mess which Bush and O'Keefe are now trying to clean up.

BINGO!!!!!

"This is one of the most ridiculous statements in this article. Clinton turned NASA into a propaganda arm of his administration. The inclusion of the Russians led to delays and a corrupt transfer of money from the US to a post cold war Russia that wound up lining the pockets of the Russian mobsters. Any serious space analyst knows what a joke that was."

You get the cupie doll! For the casual observer, this is not transparent. In fact, people still link ISS and Space Station Freedom, tragically. ISS is not Reagan's space station.

"Clinton "Klintonized" all of NASA, turning it into an
organization that served klinton's propaganda purposes and wasn't held accountable during his reign."

In fairness, the Klintonized environment already existed at NASA. Adding the Russians was merely a flourish.

"This environment was responsible for creating the huge cost
overruns of the ISS. Klintoon left a big mess which Bush and O'Keefe are now trying to clean up."

A big mess? Surely, putting the cash-strapped and socio-politically shattered Russians into the main decision path hasn't helped. A further complication is Russia's justified pride in their own space program, now nominally subservient to its old opponent. Bad Medicine.

However, I always like to point out that the apples-to-apples comparison of ISS overruns and Apollo overruns would show Apollo was the greater. Especially consider the longevity of the ISS hardware versus Apollo. And it is very good hardware, to boot.

Here's the sad part: Even with the old Space Station Freedom program, at the point the toon added the Russians, we were about to cut metal and get started on construction. Sure it had technical problems, but they would have been solved or worked around, resulting in a much larger station much earlier. It probably would have been even cheaper to implement.