On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, John Gulick wrote:
> JG: Right-wing lunacy indeed. But of course, by and large the pwogs
> continue to be consumed by their own nuttiness. I regrettably clicked on
> HuffPo the other day. Obama had just decided to cancel the $2.2 billion
> F-22 contracts (or something like that). The headline read (in
> mega-font): "Obama takes on US military-industrial establishment" (or
> something heroic to that effect).
>
> So bizarre is the discourse on nearly all sides, often I can't wait to
> get back to Asia.
To be fair, some of this absurd triumphalism is simply a reflection of how difficult it is to get anything rational through the Senate, an institution literally designed to prevent change. Gail Collins had an amusing column today that was pretty much on point:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/opinion/23collins.html
Earlier this week, the White House's hopes for success were lifted when
the Senate voted 58 to 40 to stop financing the F-22 Raptor stealth
fighter jet. Not only did this create a savings of $1.75 billion, it
demonstrated, the administration felt, that Congress really could step
up to the plate.
This was a huge, huge victory. Everybody pulled out all the stops to
give wavering senators the spine to take a stand. Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates made a big we-are-at-the-crossroads speech in Chicago,
telling the nation that if the F-22 stayed in the budget, all hope of
sane procurement practices was lost forever.
The president threatened to veto the entire $664 billion defense
appropriations bill if there were F-22s in it. Vice President Joe Biden
was on the phone talking and talking and talking. Rahm Emanuel was
threatening to bite people on the leg -- it was terrible, seeing those
swing votes limping down the halls with the White House chief of staff
gnawing at their ankles.
And they won! Who says the Senate can't make the hard choices?
Of course, the F-22 had been totally outmoded since the collapse of the
Soviet empire. We've been through two wars without ever finding any use
for it. We've already got 187 of them sitting around, available should
the Soviet Union reconstitute itself tomorrow and send its pilots into
our airspace for a stealthy dogfight.
The last two presidents, the last two joint chiefs of staff, and
apparently every secretary of defense going back to John C. Calhoun
have decried the F-22 as a stupendous waste of money. And, of course,
the Pentagon has already come up with another fighter plane, the F-35
Lightning, that it vows to spend a quadrillion dollars on instead, even
though its nickname is not nearly so cool as the Raptor's.
Still. Today a 30-year-old piece of $1.75 billion pork. Tomorrow the
world.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Blue Dog rebels in the House called the
big cost-containment victory a "small breakthrough" and noted that he
and his six fellow Dogs had nine more big problems they wanted to
discuss with the White House.
<end excerpt>
Michael