Up next
Athletes With Gorgeous Kids
After four “balloon” shootdowns in nine days, plus official denials after one general said this might be a space-alien thing, only one thing is crystal clear: The Biden administration needs to get out a lot more facts and explanations, or conspiracy theories will run rampant.
The White House said Monday that President Joe Biden has no intention of explaining his decisions. Ridiculous.
Are more balloons suddenly coming, or has US policy changed to a “down them all” approach — and if so, why? You have to fear the White House is simply desperate to show toughness after it got caught trying to let the initial Chinese espionage craft proceed safely.
So far, Biden has offered nothing more than a brief brag in his State of the Union speech, plus a vague claim to Telemundo that the first one was “no major breach.” Yet reports suggest Biden wasn’t told about that first balloon for several days. Was that policy? Is it still?
The nation’s learned that three Trump-era balloons were only ID’d as likely spycraft long after the fact. And it’s now aware that the Pentagon quietly announced a year or so back that it had belatedly realized that many readings listed as UFOs were in fact such espionage balloons.
Read Related Also: Feel-Good Friday: The Buzz Aldrin edition
Plus, Washington is suddenly sanctioning Chinese companies it says are involved in the spy-balloon offensive. Explain that timing, or it seems like another retroactive effort to look tough.
China, meanwhile, is protesting that US balloons have been crossing its territory. We hope so — though it’s also true that Beijing claims lots of territory that the rest of the world doesn’t acknowledge. So perhaps the Pentagon’s denial is true, though reports of US spy-balloon programs date back years.
It’s not just the opposition asking questions. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Dem on the House Intelligence Committee, this weekend said he has “real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows.”
Some spy-vs.-spy stuff needs to be secret, but at this point the nation deserves some clear answers — and cause to believe our leaders have solid national-security reasons for whatever it is they’re doing.
