He Just Can't Win: After Enduring Chinese Balloon Criticism, Republican Calls Biden 'Trigger-happy'
But US now is just finding more objects now that it's looking for them, Democrat says
What a difference a couple of weeks makes.
President Biden began his month with Republicans attacking him because he held off shooting down a Chinese spy balloon over the United States, until it was safely off-shore.
But now — with the US military taking down at three more unidentified flying objects in recent days — the commander-in-chief is being called “trigger-happy.”
It's clear that the president can never succeed in the eyes of many of his political opponents.
After a Chinese spy balloon was brought down this month, the U.S. has shot down at least three unidentified flying objects over the past few days.
At this point, it is unclear what the objects were, their purpose or who sent them.
What is clear is that the United States and Canada have become hypervigilant since the balloon incursion. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has adjusted its radar system to become more sensitive, sharply raising the number of objects it detects.
But back in Washington, Biden's winning little credit.
“They do appear somewhat trigger-happy, although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites,” said Rep Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “I think one thing that this shows is certainly the fallacy of the argument of the Biden administration saying that the height of the Chinese balloon caused them to have no concern, because certainly, as we know, whatever goes up can come down. And just saying that this Chinese spy balloon was high and these are lower, and, therefore, they actually pose a hazard really isn’t anybody is comfortable with.”
But the downing of so many unidentified objects over the weekend is just a side-effect of sorts from the Chinese balloon hoopla, according to Rep Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel.
“But I look back a year ago to when we had this both open hearing and classified hearing on what are -- most people call it UFOs, you're supposed to call it 'unidentified aerial phenomenon.' And what we'd learned in that hearing is that there is a lot of garbage up there,” Himes said. “It's really not that hard. Certainly, countries can do it, companies can do it and do do it. Individuals with resources can put balloons up there. And so, there is a lot of garbage up there.
“And my, again, speculative guess as why we're seeing these things happen in quick succession is that now we're really attuned to looking for them, right?” he added. “Without getting into detail, I can tell you that much of our radar, much of our sensors, are not -- are really designed against the threats that most Americans are familiar with. We spent generations worried about missiles coming over the North Pole. They move very, very quickly and don't act like balloons. We always worry about aircraft. Those of us who remember 9/11 worry about aircraft that are unidentified.
“The truth is that most of our sensors and most of what we were looking for didn't look like balloons. Now, of course, we're looking for them, so I think we're probably finding more stuff,” Himes explained.
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