Backwards Decision Making Process at NASA

I read through the original post you linked to, and I suspect that may have been some editorializing on the part of its writer. He seemed to have a noticeable distaste for the Ares architecture.

The line you are referring to is an editorial comment by the site author - the only part from Cooke is "Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture". The site may have been updated since you picked up on that to make it more obvious.

Yep, would need to see a transcript before claiming smoking gun.

There is a paper, AIAA I think, that Claybaugh and Griffin wrote 2-years before ESAS describing the architecture that NASA has today.

It is accurate to say that griffin had already made up his mind. The is a paper he put out with the Planetary society before he became administrator that describes using the stick for crew and a heavy lift for everything else. He has also been quoted as saying that FLO was the only way he knew how to do the moon.

The quote in your post is obviously something the author of the post wrote himself rather than being a quote from the speakers at the conference. It's very clear and was very clear before he typed in a response to the nasawatch post.

Naswatch should probably worry about what NASA is saying rather than a blogger!