Gingrey, after badmouthing Obama & kissing fat guy Rush Limbaugh's tail, says he is shocked, not just surprised, that the F-22 is in big-time jeopardy

Good show Doctor. Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey, whose district encompasses Lockheed Martin in Marietta where the F-22 goes through final assembly, scores big.


From The New York Times:

Back in the 1980s, the argument for a new stealth jet — what became the F-22 fighter — went like this: The Soviet Union is going to improve its combat aircraft. This new plane will be the American response.

Contractors for the F-22 were chosen in April 1991. Seven short months later, the Soviet Union disappeared.

But the F-22 soldiered on. The huge program is well into its third decade, and with critics battling it all the while, the case for its continued existence has been freshened up from time to time. It got new names that were more self-justifying, morphing into the F-22A Raptor. (“F-22” indicated a fighter jet of the outmoded anti-Soviet type; “F-22A” draws attention to its air-to-ground attacking, which is more useful in modern theaters of war. “Raptor” just sounds tough.)

Recently politicians from Georgia, where the Raptor is built, have pointed out that the program supports thousands of jobs. Of course, one politician's jobs program is another’s Bridge to Nowhere. The Raptor has been savaged as a relic from a bygone era, with cost overruns that soar over other big defense projects (see chart).

The latest to take on the F-22A is Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has noted that the United States, in the midst of waging two long wars, has yet to use the Raptor for a single mission in either of them. Last week he said he wanted four and no more. Each costs about $140 million.

So the F-22A girds for battle, not in the air but on Capitol Hill.