Republicans are critical of President Biden for waiting to destroy the Chinese spy balloon. The President directed the Pentagon to destroy it at the earliest opportunity. The Pentagon advised waiting until it was no longer over occupied areas to avoid killing or injuring Americans as well as causing destruction of American property.
It is likely that the Pentagon was carefully monitoring the balloon’s activities. While a balloon is more-or-less going to travel where the winds dictate, the payload is under fewer restrictions. Does it transmit? If it does, does the transmission type or rate change? Is it more active when over “sensitive” areas?
Of course, with the military’s weather prediction capabilities, the balloon’s path would be absolutely no mystery. When the balloon was over bases or other government installations, the DoD likely hid whichever of their toys they did not want seen and put out the ones that they did. (“Look! The American Navy is still using Stearman biplanes!”)
And as I write this, Navy divers are probably relaxing after recovering the payload while intelligence types are going over everything with a fine tooth comb . President Biden’s intelligence briefings for the past few days have probably been the NSA version of “show-and-tell.”
So what are the Republicans complaining about? Apparently, since shooting down the balloon might have resulted in damage, destruction, and even death, they weren’t suggesting it be shot down just anywhere. Preferably, they wanted it shot down over a blue state.
sfnowak 