Cheers!

Hello Michael. I think you are probably right. I've been deeply ambivalent about Gates' recommendations since he unveiled them yesterday. As with I imagine everyone else who cares about aviation, his decision to "complete" the F-22 program in favor of accelerating the F-35 seems a little, well, odd, given his protestations against programs going over budget and whose risk has not been sufficiently mitigated. We know exactly how much an F-22 costs these days (less than the F-35), we know what it can do. The same cannot be said for the F-35. I only hope that the F-22 has not become a victim of LM's marketing success (in favor of the F-35) at the expense of sacrificing air supremacy, which is a goal the Pentagon has evidently abandoned. The F-35 had better be every damned bit as good as LM claims or we are, how do you say? Oh, yes: screwed.

At any rate, sorry about the rant, but back to that veto thing. Yes, I believe you are right. Congress will try to fund 20 F-22s and that will either draw a veto threat or occasion an actual veto. Despite my username, chosen in the heat of the last election, I am not lock-step with Obama on everything. And one of the areas where I disagree with him is this notion that we fund our military on the basis of best-case scenarios regarding the likes of Russia, China, Iran and N. Korea. He had better be as good as he thinks he is on the diplomatic front because if he's not, he's going to seriously regret having stopped production of a plane every potential adversary rightly fears. Along with his incredibly naive goal of "eliminating" nuclear weapons (yeah, right), it's as if this man didn't learn a thing about MAD, the Cold War and deterrence in general. Like it or not, being armed to the teeth and being vastly superior to your potential enemies PREVENTS wars, it doesn't cause them. (What causes them is idiotic Presidents who pick on weaklings like Iraq to send a "message" to the rest of the region that, well, we are nothing but bullies who only pick on the weak kids in the playground). Why such an evidently brilliant man doesn't seem to get such a simple, yet elegant and effective policy stance like deterrence is beyond me. I fear the Russian and Chinese militaries are laughing themselves silly right about now...

I fear that with Obama, we may have gotten someone with Churchill's intellect but Chamberlain's instincts...

And damn my username. I feel like the idiot who tattoos his girlfriend's name on his arm. Now, anyone know how I can get rid of it???

Ares post title - Bill Sweetman enters rehab is heard mumbling "warfighter, cold war weapons, the war we're in, asymetrical threats". Bill, was I right about "use of language or what" like a broken watch twice a day, baby.

My prediction is that Obama may accomplish the impossible, unite congressional democrats and republicans against this madness of a budget!

Sometimes at night I shut off my computer and imagine I am Sec of Defense and was given the $787 billion in stimulas to spend on reset and modernization. A guy can dream can't he?

You write: "Obama's administration then gets to paint them as a bunch of lawmakers protecting parochial interests and not sharing in the nation's sacrifice."

Gates, during post-speech Q&A: "My hope is that, as we have tried to do here in this building, that the members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole."

Thanks for the "clarification" Mr. Duck. I can't say I see much of a distinction there. As someone who spent my career as a firefighter, I must say there was never a word like "fireior" only the politically incorrect "fireman."