Saved By the Skinner off Our Teeth?

Well I guess I was wrong. I previously said I doubted Sam Skinner, the only member of the Pentagon’s base closing commission from Illinois, would go to bat for the 183^rd Fighter Wing. Well guess what, he is, or might be:

WASHINGTON - Sam Skinner, a member of the commission considering the Pentagon's base-closing plan, will visit the Springfield Air National Guard base, Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, said Friday.

[snip]

"Commissioner Skinner was receptive to my arguments that the 183rd Fighter Wing needs to remain based in Springfield," said LaHood, who had spoken with Skinner by telephone late Thursday.

[snip]

He said Skinner accepted his invitation to visit the base at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport. Skinner, a Chicago lawyer, was White House chief of staff and transportation secretary under former President George H.W. Bush.

"I am pleased that Commissioner Skinner agreed to travel to Springfield to visit the 183rd and with our local team, which is working to keep the planes here," LaHood said. "We have done much over the past 18 months in support of the 183rd, and now we know our hardest challenge is still ahead."

The news story on this I heard on WMAY on Friday went even further and seemed to imply that Skinner would do everything he could to get the 183^rd off the realignment list.

If Skinner really is going to go to bat for Springfield in this matter, I must say I’m both pleased and disappointed. Pleased that his efforts might keep the unit and all its jobs here, but disappointed that a member of the commission would let regional partisanship get in the way of what the work of a supposedly non-partisan commission.