Parker Griffith has spent much of the last month defending himself against allegations he was a bad doctor 20 years ago, but in an editorial board meeting with The Times on Wednesday, conversation primarily concerned issues the Democrat could face as a freshman congressman.Still, ample time was spent during the hour-long meeting on the issue of previously sealed documents from the late ’80s that question Griffith’s performance at Huntsville Hospital.

Here’s what the state senator said about issues he would face if he replaced retiring longtime Congressman Bud Cramer: He could support portions of either presidential candidate’s health care plan, but neither one as is.

The plan that Congress will ultimately approve, he said, will be “uniquely American,” likely an “amalgamation” of what John McCain and Barack Obama are proposing.

He wants to expand the current third- and fourth-year medical school program at Huntsville’s campus of the University of Alabama in Birmingham to include first- and second-year students, which would create more doctors for the northern portion of the state: “If they train here, we know they’ll stay here.”

He would seek support from Democrats and Republicans to continue funding for the Ares I and V rockets being developed in Huntsville, not only to keep jobs here but to propel NASA further ahead of India’s and China’s space programs, two countries now embroiled in something of a “modified Cold War situation” with the United States in outer space.

He wouldn’t recommend defense cuts but he said he expects to see less defense spending on “tires and boots and ammunition” as the war winds down and more on research and development.

He sees the Iraq withdrawal timetable suggestions of presidential candidates Obama and McCain - 16 months and roughly 24 months, respectively - as negotiable: “It’s only a difference of 32 weeks,” which he said isn’t much of a difference in a war that’s gone on for over five years.

“We have learned a lesson in Iraq, and I don’t think we’ll be quick to repeat it,” he said.

He believes the current economic downturn - and he used the word “recession” to describe it - will last another 24 months “before we inch out of it,” and Congress should better regulate financial institutions to make sure that the “unmitigated, unopposed greed” that caused it won’t happen again.

He said he’s learned from his two years as a state senator that good ideas don’t always come to fruition if you’re not a member of the majority party or if the committee chairman doesn’t like you. A mistake he said he made in Montgomery was that he was “naive” to believe otherwise.

“(The state Legislature) is a very dysfunctional group,” he said, adding that he’s seen how personality issues seriously hinder the lawmaking process. “It begs for term limits.”

Navigating that dysfunction has helped him develop “effective leadership that understands negotiation,” a skill especially necessary in trying economic times. He said he’ll seek support from both sides of the aisle, as has the outgoing Cramer.

“We don’t call someone who doesn’t have a job a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “We call them unemployed.”

Whoever represents the 5th district - whether it’s Griffith or his Republican opponent Wayne Parker - will be a freshman. But Griffith said he believes having the endorsement of Cramer, who has served 18 years in the House and is on the powerful Appropriations Committee, will give him an advantage. He said the invitation to join the Blue Dog coalition - a group of conservative Democrat House members - is another advantage.

Griffith said he’s spoken to some House members, and he believes he’ll be “strongly considered” for a spot on the Transportation Committee, and he’ll pursue involvement with the Armed Services Committee.

Achieving a place of power on any committee takes time, and Griffith is 65. When asked how his health is, he responded, “Better than McCain’s! My mom is 93, and she thinks I’m too young to run.”

As much as he wants to put allegations of poor performance at Huntsville Hospital in the ’80s behind him, the retired cancer doctor gave further explanation on why he thinks he got such critical peer reviews from four radiation oncologists 20 years ago, who examined some of his patient charts at the request of Huntsville Hospital.

Continuing the defense he’s given since the sealed documents were leaked to the media, he said the environment at the hospital was “bitterly competitive” and he’d opened his own cancer care center while still seeing patients there.

He said the doctors who were reviewing his charts - and who took him to task for poor record-keeping and inadequate doses of radiation - weren’t given all of the patients’ information. He said he routinely saw patients at the hospital part of the time and at his clinic part of the time, and the reviewers were only given the hospital portion of the records.

The Times editorial board is scheduled to meet with Parker Friday morning, and that story will appear in Saturday’s edition.