Current Secretary of Defense says it happened. Former Secretary of Defense under Trump says it didn’t happen and that’s something he’d remember. Who the hell knows who’s telling the truth.

This balloon traversed the entire US before being shot down presumably after its mission was complete. Seems odd to shoot it down 7 days after it entered the US.

Who knows who's telling the truth?

By CopleyScott17 on Sun, 02/05/2023 - 3:20pm.

Are you seriously in doubt about which administration is more likely to be telling the truth?

On another note, it may seem odd to you that they waited a few days to shoot it down, but explanations I've heard from military analysts and administration sources seem reasonable: intelligence agencies could block potential transmissions, gather valuable information from tracking its movements, and shoot it down more safely over water rather than land, then retrieve the wreckage from relatively shallow water. Makes sense to me.

Definitely no debate there

By robo on Sun, 02/05/2023 - 3:54pm.

They can’t block high resolution pictures or whatever else was on that balloon though. They’ll know soon enough what was on the balloon and how much sensitive info was lost.

For any sensitive info to

By CH on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 12:46pm.

For any sensitive info to have been lost, assuming American jamming was successful, it would've had to either be collected and transmitted prior to jamming efforts or overcome active jamming. Any photos that were taken but not transmitted went down with the balloon and are now property of the United States government.

Anyone who worked in that administration

By perruptor on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 4:03am.

Anyone who worked for the biggest liar ever to occupy the White House has a presumption of mendacity attached to them forever. He told something like 30,000 verified lies while President, and everyone who worked there knew it. Many of them repeated his lies and told lies of their own. Why would anyone give them the benefit of the doubt, ever? Really, why?

The truth is gray

By brianjdamico on Sun, 02/05/2023 - 5:07pm.

Esper's statement is not an absolute denial of it having ever happened. "I don't recall" and "I'd would remember" could be truthful statements in the instant, but memory is fickle.

Here's a new set of tweets from journalists from both Washington Post and Fox News saying it happened, and that DoD has informed "congressional officials" of these prior incidents YESTERDAY: https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1622352268451368967

Reagan did not sell weapons to Iran to free hostages, and don't you ever forget that. (https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-reagan-convinced-himself-he-didnt-sell...)

Thanks, I appreciate the reply

By robo on Sun, 02/05/2023 - 5:23pm.

The only thing I know about politicians is to not trust them more than you can throw them.

There are degrees

By perruptor on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 4:29am.

Most politicians will sacrifice the truth when it's in their interest and they think they can get away with it. One party is full of people who always think they can get away with it. It goes back at least as far as Irving Krystol, who wrote:

There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.

The Republican Party has accepted this view as dogma, to the point that the truth of an idea has absolutely no value to them. This is why they so often adopt positions contrary to science.

To assume that all politicians lie all the time is to give up on trying to determine when they're doing it, and you might as well not pay any attention to them at all. While this is probably a realistic approach to today's Republicans and their captive media, it's still worthwhile to get information from other sources.

The President trusting the advice of his

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 1:16am.

generals when they advise caution instead of aggression: is that crazy? Do you seriously think they might secretly be in league with our top military and economic rival on the world stage, or don't properly understand the threat it presents?

I dunno. Maybe you'd feel better if Biden sucked up to Putin, Kim, and other totalitarian despots, undercut the NATO alliance, left our ally Ukraine to swing in the wind, and routinely contradicted the findings of his own intelligence apparatus. Is that your definition of strength? I have to admit I'm confused by the stance of right-wingers here.

You lost me when you assumed I’m a right-winger

By robo on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 8:09am.

Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

...which was at the end of his post

By merlinmurph on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 11:02am.

...

Please

By robo on Mon, 02/06/2023 - 11:11am.

The whole thing reeked of you’re a Republican<\whiny voice> from the first sentence.

My apologies for characterizing your

By MC Slim JB on Tue, 02/07/2023 - 6:43am.

response as that of a right-winger. But you were echoing a right-wing talking point: "Why did Biden wait seven days?" And I stand by my point: because that was the advice of his senior military leaders, whom I expect know something about risk management, as that is essentially the definition of the job.

Sorry to aim it at you, but I was responding to the gall that wingnuts are able to summon in criticizing Biden for perceived military weakness. They have zero standing to do so: the draft-dodging Former Guy was a historically feeble actor on the world stage, groveling before our enemies and pushing our allies away, never mind how he crippled our economy with his incompetent covid response. Further, the latest news suggests that the military under both administrations failed to detect earlier Chinese balloon incursions.

I just have to shake my head at people who think TFG was anything but a dangerous buffoon as CIC. That addled bloatbag thinks Africa is a country, tried to stage a Kremlin-style tank parade in DC, and wanted to shoot missiles at Mexico and pretend someone else did it. Biden has rebuilt our alliances, strengthened NATO, kept Putin from steamrolling Ukraine, and reinforced our less formal alliances in Asia against China. Righties need to shut up about the damned balloon.