Begich on oil, medals, and Young

Sen. Mark Begich sat down with KTVA reporter Matt Felling this week to talk oil, medals, and the always outspoken Rep. Don Young.

Begich on what to call the oily situation in the Gulf of Mexico: "The media and politicians are calling the BP disaster 'a spill,' but by definition it's not. Spills have a finite beginning and end, like the Exxon Valdez."

Begich on Young telling APRN that the Gulf blowout is not an "environmental disaster": "The great privilege of our constitutional rights, you can say whatever you want. That's one thing we know about Don Young: He will say what he believes, how he feels about a certain issue."

Begich on the huge decrease in the rate that Medals of Honors have been awarded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (an issue covered in the latest New York Times Magazine): "I think there's a question of 'are we really, are we too cautious,' because we've had several instances that maybe the people weren't, shouldn't have qualified for that high level." (Felling noted that Begich was referring to Pat Tillman and Jennifer Lynch.)

Oil and war are important, of course, but in other groundbreaking news Felling's weekly program has a new name. Over the past two weeks Political Animal has covered how the name "View from the Hill" is actually already claimed by a D.C. agricultural organization that wasn't interested in sharing its tag.

Felling decided to run a contest to rename the program, which he kicked off by tweeting his over 500 followers and emailing everybody else he knows. He got a wide range of submissions, which he broke into a few categories.

Aggrieved: Washington's Assault on Alaska
Alliterative: Alaska Asks, Capital Chatter, Capitol Questions
Cheeky/Nostalgic: I can see Washington from here, or I Can See the Hill from my House
Authentic: Fine by me. We don't do hills in Alaska; we've got Denali
Pushing the envelope: Channel 11's 49 Nuggets, weekly interviews with Alaska's Congressional Representatives -- Gold or Moose, you choose.

Bill Tappan of Soldotna wrote in with a gentle tweak of a suggestion, so Felling ran it by the beltway group. They were good with it, which is why from now on we'll all be watching the new and improved "Alaska's View from the Hill."

"Sometimes you don't have to reinvent the wheel; the gentlest tweaks can be the best. It helps if they're legal, too," Felling said in an email.

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.