And what evidence is there that Underperfomin' Norman had anything at all to do with this? On the other hand, Transportation is one of the more useless supernumary Cabinet positions so your praise is quite faint.

AOG - Mineta may not personally have been that significant, but it's clear that the Airbus vs Boeing competition is now a France/Germany vs U.S. competition, and both sides are linking all kinds of government policies to which aircraft vendor is patronized. With the revelation that France was basing tsunami aid and tariffs on Airbus purchases, this is a reasonable response for us. The competition has been going on behind the scenes for a while - thus the 3+-year holdup of approval for the Indian Airlines Airbus order is probably due to U.S. pressure.

Mineta making the trip to India was just for emphasis. This is a Bush policy.

Mineta's policy on not profiling passenger interviews has been ridiculous. On that point alone he's incompetent and damn lucky, so far.

Genecis:

It's worked.

PJ;

Yes, but you just reinforce my point. The only positive effects you can put in the Mineta column are ones where he's been a wind-up doll for President Bush. Hardly the stuff of greatness.

Why not? What is getting a bureaucracy to do what it's asked to do if not a signal achievement? How many cabinet secretaries have achieved it?

For the same reason that when a homerun is hit, we don't praise the bat.

You praise the manager?

I usually praise the pitcher.

Mineta does not have responsibility for airline security anymore. TSA is part of Homeland Security. In other words, conservatives can stop obsessing on Mineta.

After Bush v. Gore, he, as a Democrat and Clinton appointee, took a cabinet post from a man who "stole" the election. Bushes don't forget such things. Conservatives in general should do likewise.