Mikey in the Multiverse

Michael Griffin is nothing if not a diligent student. He seems to have accumulated seven degrees, including a PhD, an MBA, and four other master's degrees, and is reputedly working on yet another. These qualifications don't necessarily make an ideal NASA administrator, however, and he has lots of critics. The principal criticisms seem to be three: NASA won't have heavy lift capability for nearly a decade or more, NASA has cut back science missions in favor of an unrealistic man on Mars scheme, and NASA has allowed unqualified political hacks to censor its scientists.

Most of these problems were in fact foisted on him by Karl Rove's political hackery, and Griffin could argue that he made the best possible defense of NASA's key assets from the White House idiots. Be that as it may, Griffin is now under fire for reportedly being uncooperative with the Obama transition team. The Orlando Sentinel, which keeps an ear close to the ground on space matters, reports this conversation between transition team member Lori Garver and Griffin (hat tip Kevin Drum:

Garver and Griffin engaged in what witnesses said was an animated conversation. Some overheard parts of it.
“Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood,” Garver said.
“If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar,” Griffin replied. “Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood.

Nobody would trust a car salesman who said something like this, and I'm pretty sure Obama won't trust a NASA administrator who does. The Sentinel article linked above contains a lot of useful background. More can be found in Kevin Drum's post, also linked above, and the comments thereto, and in Julianne's post at Cosmic Variance (NASA's Hissy Fit, and for a view from another region of the Mutiverse, where the sky is green and the moons go backwards, Lubos Motl's post Obama is flooding . . .