Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Errant Plane Forces Government Evacuations In DC

A plane flying into restricted airspace forced the bureaucrats on Capitol Hill to evacuate the Capitol today, as well as the White House and Supreme Court. Almost immediately, the pundits started criticizing the handling of the incident. The arrogance and self inflated importance of several, was quite evident. (Poor babies had to stop doing the usual nothing.)

Now, it would be foolish to suggest that the system is flawless. That much is evident. But absent full drills that involve full evacuations (as in school fire drills), this is the only way we can adequately work the bugs out. Lucky for us, this was a false alarm.

I heard several critics complain that the military should not have let the plane get within the three mile distance that officials reported, it did. What would they have done, shoot it down? Think of the outcry, if that would have been the case. What a mess that would have been and the Left would have had a field day, had that been the case.

At worst, this was a mild inconvenience. At best, it was an opportunity to evaluate the process. It isn't perfect and will never be, but it gives us the chance to improve and that is something all of us need to do.

But more importantly, I must commend the military and the Homeland Security Department for not getting trigger happy, in spite of the tense situation.

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