LCS overruns... again.

Strategypage discusses the cost overruns on the Littoral Combat Ship.

The decline of American shipbuilding is a serious matter. We're not talking about pizza pans or some consumer product to make life easier. Here, we are talking about the ships that makes the seas safe for the merchant vessels that carry out trade, some American, some from other countries.

That said, we do need to ask some hard questions of the Clinton Administration. Why did they set things on a path so that there was no choice but to retire dozens of Perry-class frigates, Spruance-class destroyers, and even some Los Angeles-class attack submarines? Why were some of the upgrades to the F-14 Tomcat never made? Why were so many production lines allowed to stop and vanish forever into history?

One of Rumsfeld's biggest mistakes was letting some of this continue. In some cases, it got worse with such things as down-grading the armament on those Perry-class frigates we were keeping. Quite frankly, given thehole he was in, he probably deserves credit for accomplishing all he did.

One thing should be clear in all of this: Elect a Democrat as President, and you get a hollow military that will take time to rebuild. Time that you may not have, as we leanred on September 11, 2001.