[Dear Junkman:]
You take the predictable position that "NASA is pushing this dubious claim (i.e., that the Mars rock contains evidence of life) in order to defend its budget". It's more complicate than that.
First, about the meteorite: My friends in astronomy and chemistry are nearly all skeptical about the claim that the Mars meteorite has been proven to contain fossilized primitive bacteria. The final word won't be written for some time. NASA has started the process of allowing researchers to propose to do tests on the sample, but that hasn't happened yet (to my knowledge). In other words, very few scientists have had a chance to run tests on the Martian meteorite. When they do, we'll know for sure. And I'll bet it's negative.
However, I think that you are missing an important point about the relation of this greatly heralded discovery (or non-discovery) to the NASA program and the NASA budget. Certainly NASA wants to defend its budget. However, if NASA really wants to send a probe to Mars to look for evidence of extraterrestrial life, they have to send an UNMANNED probe, that has been autoclaved to destroy all terrestrial life. Otherwise, it'll be contaminated with life before it reaches Mars. Now, the only justification of the space station is to continue a manned space program. An unmanned program wouldn't require a manned space station.
So one behind-the-scenes conflict that you are overlooking is that between the space station advocates (e.g., contractors) and the scientists (whose science is getting squeezed out financially by the costs of the space station). Lots of scientists hate the space station. Very little useful science will come from the space station, and its ever-rising price tag is hurting the budget for space science.
One consequence: the more seriously the Mars rocks are taken, the worse it is for the space station. To make a search for possible Martian life a top priority for NASA, they have to cancel the space station and spend the money on unmanned probes, and space science, instead.
John Farley is a professor of physics at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
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