How many Dumbocrats can we drop from an F-22 bomber bay?
Imagine this. You’re in the market for a new car, so you do some research. You check out reliability, mileage ratings, safety tests, and cost. You test drive dozens of vehicles. Just for a lark you pop into a GM dealership and drive a Hummer H2. It’s a piece of crap that drives like a tank, produces three times more carbon dioxide than other cars, requires new tires every 20,000 miles, has lousy sight lines, and gets 8 mpg. You only drove it so you can laugh about the experience at cocktail parties. Your decision is cast; you intend to buy a good old reliable Toyota Corolla for around $16,000. It’s always among the top-rated vehicles and it gets almost 40 mpg on the highway.
Imagine this. You’re in the market for a new car, so you do some research. You check out reliability, mileage ratings, safety tests, and cost. You test drive dozens of vehicles. Just for a lark you pop into a GM dealership and drive a Hummer H2. It’s a piece of crap that drives like a tank, produces three times more carbon dioxide than other cars, requires new tires every 20,000 miles, has lousy sight lines, and gets 8 mpg. You only drove it so you can laugh about the experience at cocktail parties. Your decision is cast; you intend to buy a good old reliable Toyota Corolla for around $16,000. It’s always among the top-rated vehicles and it gets almost 40 mpg on the highway.
You’re in the process of writing the check when your doorbell rings. Several members of Congress are standing outside and they inform you that Congress has just passed legislation requiring you to buy the $63,000 Hummer H2. “But I don’t want a Hummer,” you protest. “It doesn’t matter,” says the delegation. “Thousands of jobs in our districts depend on producing the Hummer.” You talk to your father and he vetoes the Hummer, but the Congressmen persist: “You will buy the Hummer, even if you never drive it.”
Ridiculous, right? Well that’s exactly the scenario playing out right now with the F-22 fighter jet. The Pentagon doesn’t want it, President Obama has said he’ll veto it, and defense experts say the plane’s not only too expensive, it’s unstable, unreliable, and unnecessary. The Congressional response? It doesn’t matter. Cancelling the plane would cost jobs, so they want to buy at least four more of them at $200 million a piece and it doesn’t care what the Pentagon does with them.
It gets more galling. Who are the ones proclaiming that that this is stupid? Mostly conservative Republicans. Liberal Democrats are the biggest cheerleaders for the F-22 and they’re busy rounding up votes to override their own president if he makes good with a veto threat. Didn’t we elect Democrats to end the war in Iraq, fix the economy, and enact health care reform? Call them “Dumbocrats.” They just don’t get it. Will any of us be surprised when they once again end up as the minority party?
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