More fecklessness on defense...

This time, the target is missile defense. Murdoc has some details. Wired.com has more.

In this case, the fecklessness is obvious. The Democrats have never supported a national missile defense, and now, they are in a position to back up that dislike. Never mind that the world has seen plenty of reasons to question just how responsible North Korea and Iran are.

The ABL is an earlier technology than the new solid-state lasers. Indeed, we may be seeing an AL-2 come down the pike using those on a 767 airframe rather than the COIL of the AL-1's 747 airframe.

But this is a technology worth having. It needs to be deployed, not killed as we near the first tests. There have been numerous weapon systems that have had their lengthy and troubled development periods. They proved to be worth the effort. This is likely to be another... if it isn't aborted.