Battleland has reported several times recently (here, here and here) on Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’ controversial approach to naming Navy vessels – honoring Cesar Chavez and John Murtha, most notably. The conservative Washington Times denounced the trend this week in an editorial titled The USS Karl Marx.
The Senate, in its recent defense authorization bill, has ordered “the Secretary of Defense to perform a study and seek recommendations to evaluate how Naval vessels are named, after several controversial names were given to U.S. Navy ships,” according to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. If there’s one thing worse than the Navy secretary naming ships, it’s handing that responsibility over to Congress.