Everyone needs to get a grip regarding the ‘spy balloons’

It looked like something out of a Hollywood sci-fi flick: the White House press secretary assuring a roomful of reporters that there is “no indication of aliens.” Press secretary Karine Jean-pierre had to make that startling pronouncement this week because a top general had earlier declined to rule out the possibility that extraterrestrials are behind a string of mysterious objects the U.S. military has shot out of the sky lately.

Everyone needs to get a grip. The sudden appearance of these objects doesn’t mean some global (or otherworldly) power is suddenly swarming America. It’s more likely the military is seeing them now because it’s looking for them in the wake of a recent incursion by a Chinese spy balloon. The most recent ones could yet turn out to be benign. Should more of them appear, President Joe Biden should carefully consider whether this shoot-first-andask-questions-later approach is really the best one — and he should make sure it’s not just a knee-jerk reaction to predictable Republican bluster.

The strange saga began at the end of January, when a 200-foot balloon carrying a large equipment array traversed from Alaska to the northwestern U.S. to the east coast over eight days. The U.S. military shot the object down off the South Carolina coast Feb. 4. While the Chinese government continues to claim, improbably, that it was a scientific balloon that blew off course, the recovered equipment indicates it was designed for spying.

Then, over three days starting last Friday, the U.S. shot down three additional flying objects over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron. Those vessels remain more mysterious than the first one. Recovery operations were still under way this week, hampered by rough terrain and water.

There is a not-unreasonable explanation for the differing responses to the first and subsequent incidents: The Chinese balloon was floating far above U.S. air lanes and was large enough that an overland shootdown could have endangered lives. The three subsequent crafts are described as much smaller, and were positioned low enough to pose hazards to commercial flights.

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Heinrich had deleted her tweet by the next morning.”

Yup, Fox hosts and the Murdoch family were OK with discrediting the core engine of America’s democracy — our ability to peacefully and legitimately transfer power — if it would hold their audience and boost their stock.

Now enter Nikki Haley, who also last week announced her presidential bid.

I’ve never met Haley, but from afar it seemed that she had a reasonably good story to tell — a successful South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, Trump’s first U.N. ambassador and the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her mother, Raj, studied law at the University of New Delhi, and after immigrating to South Carolina earned a master’s degree in education and became a local public school teacher. Her father, Ajit, earned a doctorate from the University of British Columbia and then taught as a biology professor at Voorhees College for 29 years. On the side, they even opened a clothing boutique.

The whole family is a walking advertisement for how America has been enriched by immigration.

And as governor, Haley’s best known — and most courageous — political act came in the aftermath of a white gunman killing nine Black parishioners during a June 2015 prayer session at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. After it was discovered the gunman had posed for photos with Confederate symbols and was linked to a racist manifesto, Haley called for legislation that led to the removal of the Confederate flag that had flown on the state Capitol grounds since 1962.

“We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer,” Haley declared.

Good on her. Now fast-forward to Haley announcing her run for the presidency. Imagine all the ways she could have differentiated herself from Trump and Ron Desantis.

She could have said: “Friends, in the last two years, Congress passed bills to upgrade our infrastructure, our capacity to make advanced microchips and advanced clean-energy systems. The first two were passed with bipartisan majorities. This legislation constitutes a launching pad that could enable America to dominate the 21st century. And I know how to get the most out of those launching pads.

“During my time as governor, Greenville, S.C., became one of the nation’s most important hubs of wind energy innovation. As South Carolina’s Upstate Business Journal recently wrote, ‘According to a new study from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, inventors in Greenville were responsible for 172 wind energy patents over the past five years, more than any other metro area in the country.’ You bet! That’s because we made Greenville home to General Electric’s Power & Water energy engineering team.”

Haley could have added, “I also know a lot about building infrastructure for hightech manufacturing, because during my time as governor I helped to make South Carolina one of the nation’s most active hubs of advanced manufacturing — from advanced aircraft to cars to tires.”

Haley could have then pivoted to explain that every one of those manufacturers today is telling us that to realize their full potential they need workers schooled in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). But they can’t find them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2025 America could need 1 million more engineers and other STEM professionals than we can produce at home at our current rate. She could have said the only way to fill that gap is by welcoming the world’s most energetic and highly skilled immigrants.

Legal immigrants grow our pie and invent things that enhance our national security. As the daughter of two such immigrants, Haley could have committed to forging a long-needed compromise that would truly halt illegal immigration while expanding legal immigration. As a governor who dared yank down the Confederate flag, she could boast that she had the spine to pull the country together to do big, hard things.

Sure, that kind of speech would have challenged the Republican base, but I bet it would have energized many others — particularly independents and moderate Republicans looking for alternatives to Trump.

But Haley said none of it.

And now for the perfect ending to Haley’s presidential announcement events. The evening of her speech, she appeared on — wait for it now — Hannity’s show on Fox, where she complained that the GOP needs a message to “bring in” a variety of people and said it must do a better job at messaging — but she offered no actual message.

The woman whose family immigration story could have so linked up with a concrete strategy for American renewal, the woman whose political courage in taking down the Confederate flag could have served as the perfect opening message to bring more minorities into the GOP, chose instead to do a bad imitation of Ron Desantis.

Why? Because like Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson and the Murdochs, Haley was more interested in following the Fox base than shaping it, let alone leading it to a better place.

As I said, imagine what Nikki Haley might have sounded like if Fox News didn’t exist.