The great H.L. Mencken once said, “Balloonists have an unsurpassed view of the scenery.” They sure do, especially when it's a Peking balloon flying over Montana.  

China has an explanation, and here it goes:     

"The airship is from China," China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

"It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course."     

"The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure."

Okay, it was a mistake.  Yes, it was an honest mistake that the balloon was over "...one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information."

Don't you love mistakes like that?  North America is huge, but the balloon just happened to be flying over one of our sensitive military sites.  As my late mother use to say, those "comunistas" always lie to you even when you catch them in the act.

This is a devastating blow to President Biden.  I wonder if it was a message that China has embarrassing information on Joe and Hunter.  Or maybe they were showing the world that our military has spent too much time on pronouns rather than defense. Wonder what Taiwan is thinking this morning?

There may be a silver lining to this cloud.  Maybe Senator Jon Tester of Montana will finally wake up to the fact that he is voting too much with the Biden administration.   He is up for reelection in 2024 and a balloon over Montana plus the rancher's wife paying too much for food is not helping him.

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Image: Semiha Deniz.