On 13 Apr 2005 12:29:22 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Tom Cuddihy"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I'm not "backpedaling" either. I'm simply explaining how policy
works
to someone who apparently knows absolutely nothing about it.

sea lawyer.

You're wrong dude, admit it. Changing the argument to one of semantics
about 'policy' is arguing what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

A policy is not a "promise," sorry.

The fact is, the agreed upon, intitiated, and momentum of the policy is
solidly for shuttle retirement in EXACTLY 2010. So just shut up and
admit that Greg *might* have been correct when you were wrong.

He's wrong, and being politically foolish. As Jorge said, the date
was arbitrary, and just part of a general strategy to achieve the
objective. There would be no political penalty to shifting the date
out if circumstances turned out to require it, and it wouldn't require
"courage" on anyone's part. That's simply silly.