Bridenstine's Staff Starts To Revise His Past

Parts of Trump NASA pick’s online presence scrubbed, CNN
“The removal of accounts and posts comes at a time when Congress will examine Bridenstine’s record in the lead-up to his confirmation hearing. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts belonging to Bridenstine’s campaign have been deleted entirely. Several posts on the Facebook page of Bridenstine’s congressional office have also been deleted. The congressman’s Soundcloud account now only hosts two radio interviews with the congressman, but a search of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and the Google Cache show there used to be several radio interviews available on the account. Some of the missing interviews appear to be with conservative talk radio hosts like Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham. Matthew Rydin, a spokesperson for Bridenstine, said the campaign Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were deleted because his office was getting questions about whether Bridenstine was standing by his pledge to only serve three terms, which he is. “He is not campaigning for any office, so no reason to maintain the campaign accounts,” Rydin said.”
Keith’s note: On one hand this is a rather amateurish thing for Bridenstine’s staff to do since nothing ever disappears from the Internet. Deleting things like this simply tells the media and political opponents what he’d rather not be questioned about during confirmation hearings – assuring that these things will now be brought up with more emphasis than might have otherwise been the case. On the other hand, this selective editing may represent an attempt by Bridenstine to pivot away from more controversial stances in the past toward positions that are more in synch with where NASA is poised.
Bridenstine’s past certainly affects who he is today. In the end Congress is going to vote on Bridenstine as a nominee for who he is at that moment and what they think he can do in the future. Right now there is little doubt that the votes are there to confirm him. As such I would urge Bridenstine and his staff to just leave the past alone and focus instead on the road ahead i.e. how he would serve as NASA’s Administrator.
To be honest, I think this is probably a case of what I call “Right Stuff – Wrong Staff”. Stay tuned.