by Ned Barnett, American Thinker:
This article had already been accepted for print in American Thinker when President Joe Biden “courageously” ordered the destruction of China’s spy balloon after it had soared out to sea, where there was nothing more to spy on.
That balloon crossed the entire country, passing over strategic U.S. assets, such as the field of silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses a major proportion of America’s intercontinental nuclear-equipped missiles.
When Joe announced this “victory” over an unarmed eye-in-the-sky spy balloon with all the swagger of John Wayne at his peak, he tried to make it seem as though he he were bold, decisive, and in charge.
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The facts, however, suggest something else.
Before we get into China’s balloon incursion and Biden’s week-long non-response to this flagrant violation of American sovereignty, consider this. 
In 1945, Japan launched a strategic bombing campaign against the United States, releasing hundreds – some say thousands – of stratospheric balloons, powered by the same jet streams the Chinese used this past week. Each Japanese balloon carried a small bomb load. When discovered, most were shot down by fighter aircraft crews. The few that landed all settled into unpopulated mountain and desert areas in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and – wait for it – Montana. Only a few Americans died from this assault, and those who died were hikers who came across the landed balloons, tripping a trigger to their explosive charges.
More than 75 years ago, the technology China used had already been proven.
Fast forward to Xi Jinping vs. Joe Biden in the new “War of the Balloons.”
Presidents going back to Lyndon Johnson have been taken down because of things they did – but with Biden, he may be taken down because of the things he didn’t do, such as stopping the Chinese spy balloon before it could spy on American secrets from Alaska to South Carolina.
Johnson tried to micromanage the Vietnam War, only to discover that he lacked the wisdom and understanding that allowed FDR and Winston Churchill to closely manage their armies in World War II. Nixon took a fall after learning that micromanaging his own political campaign, without regard to laws he clearly held in contempt, was his fatal flaw. His crime – invading Democratic Party campaign headquarters in the Watergate complex, then covering up the burglary – gave the name “Watergate” to presidential malfeasance.
With Carter, it was branding a skyrocketing inflation rate while the economy only stagnantly grew as “malaise” – rather than taking responsibility for his economic bungling – that finally did him in. With Bush the elder, it was “read my lips, no new taxes,” a promise he didn’t just break, but dramatically broke by instituting the largest tax increase in our nation’s history. With Clinton, it was “I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky” and the never-to-be-forgotten “it all depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is” that sabotaged his own administration – though not his electability. And so it has gone for other presidents since Vietnam, two generations ago.
But along comes Joe Biden and perhaps – just maybe – his ultimate downfall, the misjudgment that could cost him a second term, could come to be known as “Balloongate.” Why? Certainly not because of his actions, but in this case, because of his inactions. These range from not shooting down the balloon while it was still spying on America to refusing to even address the 800-pound gorilla in the White House – China really was blatantly spying on America, with no consequences whatsoever.
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