Article on supposedly "unprecedented" heights of White House interference at NASA

On 12 Feb 2006 12:39:51 -0500, in a place far, far away, Jim Kingdon
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Re this morning's article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...eadlines-space

I can't really add anything. In fact, I was a little surprised by the
number of 18 political appointees in the Clinton administration and 24
now. I had always thought that there were only 2 political positions
in NASA (administrator and I think deputy administrator). In fact,
Dwayne Day has written that if NASA had more political appointees,
maybe they would get along better with the White House.

Perhaps the 2 are the number which are confirmed by the Senate?
I'm not sure how "political appointee" is being defined...

I think that all associate administrators are political appointees, in
the sense that they are vetted by the White House.