Our long national nightmare, which was neither long nor a nightmare, came to a deflating end on Saturday afternoon. NBC News reported:
The U.S. downed the Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast on Saturday, a U.S. official said, setting off a tense exchange between the two nations. An F-22 raptor with a single missile shot down the balloon at 2:39 p.m., according to a senior defense official. It was between 60,000 to 65,000 feet in the air when it was downed.
In a healthy and mature political environment, this would likely be seen as a story related to diplomacy, espionage and tense relations between the world’s two most powerful countries. After all, by all appearances, China made a serious mistake for which officials in Beijing appeared wholly unprepared. What’s more, the timing of the incident did China no favors: It was poised to welcome Secretary of State Antony Blinken and focus on its post-Covid vision.
Instead, Beijing is scrambling to explain its own misstep, while pretending to be outraged that the United States shot down its balloon.
But in our current political environment, we had a very different kind of conversation.
Step One was head-shaking hysterics from Republicans who should’ve known better. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, for example, appeared on Fox News last week and asked the kind of questions that reinforced concerns about how unserious he is about his responsibilities. “Is that bioweapons in that balloon?” the Kentucky Republican asked. “Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”
Step Two was the inevitable GOP smear campaign, as Republican tried to convince the public the Chinese surveillance balloon was President Joe Biden’s fault. “China believes America is a weakened superpower with a reputation of strength that no longer holds true,” Sen. Marco Rubio wrote via social media, targeting his own country’s government. The Florida Republican, a few hours before the U.S. military shot down the balloon,…
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