thependulumswings

The story doesn’t end when the air went pssst from the Chinese Spy Balloon(CSB) late Saturday afternoon.  The story behind the story is really the story.  And, it has just begun.

Journalism 101 teaches that four questions must be answered along the way.  Who?  What?  When?  Where?  It also teaches us that two other questions should be answered as well.  Why?  How?

The American public has few answers.  The American public still has many questions.

First, we pose some serious ones.

Why wasn’t the CSB shot out of the air as it first entered American air space?  Was it for the safety of those below due to the debris field?  The balloon traversed over Alaska first. It doesn’t get much more uninhabited than for long empty stretches of Alaska.

When did American intelligence first know about it?  If it was launched from China’s mainland as was floated(pardon the pun) yesterday then was it close to two weeks ago?

When was President Biden first informed of the CSB?  He was braggadocious telling the eager press yesterday that he “ordered” the military on Wednesday to take it out as soon as they felt it was safe.  How long did it take for him to decide?  And, why?

Would this all have been kept hush-hush until citizens in Montana spotted it and local TV ran with it?  Only Karine Jean Claude Van Damme Pepe Le Pugh Pierre knows and we’re guessing she’ll “have to circle back with us on that.”

Why was it strategically steered to avoid Russia?  This one is easy.  It would have been shot down immediately with the one bullet Putin has left from the war in Ukraine.

Why was it steered to avoid Ukraine?  This one is easy, too.  It would have been shot down immediately by Zelenskyy with one of the millions of bullets we paid for in the war with Russia.

Was the apparatus equipped with transmitting devices?   Did it capture everything it needed by the time it left the South Carolina coast yesterday?  Of course, it was.  And, of course, it did.

Why did we use a missile to obliterate the CSB?  Wouldn’t it be better if the parts weren’t smashed to smithereens and scattered over a seven-mile debris field 45 feet under salt water?

Why cancel Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned trip this week to China?  We blinked.  Sending him over to go face-to-face is stronger than folding your cards.

And, now a few not-so-serious ones.

Would Biden have acted sooner if he knew the balloon was unvaccinated?  Maybe he would have ordered multiple shots.  Boosters too.

Is this the first time in two years that Biden has paid any attention to inflation?

Is Border Czar VP Kamala Harris headed to China to find out the root cause of this border breach?

Did we fear that it was a modern-day Trojan Horse and thousands of Chinese soldiers with parachutes would drop out and invade?

Did the one military general who jokingly suggested that it might be a giant pinata get sent directly to diversity, inclusion, and equality training?

Did the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, endorse the hot air balloon as clean energy travel?  Or, did he call the balloon “racist infrastructure” due to its lily-white color?

Did we even get a chance to learn what pronouns the balloon goes by before it went bye-bye?

It’s better for the mind and the soul to poke fun at this when we take seven days to poke a hole in a spy balloon.

But, seriously, how does China feel about the end result of the trial balloon it floated to test Biden’s strength and resolve?  Mission accomplished.

But, write this down.  On Tuesday, during his State of the Union address, Biden (aka the Big Guy) will take credit for his swift action and strong stance against China.  And, 200-plus members of Congress will stand, cheer, and clap fervently.

It’s all a bunch of hot air.