Schmalloon 2

 Okay, so it's something bigger and more complicated than a weather balloon. But, according to an (of course) unnamed Pentagon official:

 

But so far, officials have determined that the potential damage of falling debris outweighs the risk of the balloon itself, which they said does not have the ability to bring in more intelligence than spy satellites in low Earth orbit, which China already uses.

“Why not shoot it down? We have to do the risk-reward here,” a senior defense official said on Thursday. “So the first question is, does it pose a threat, a physical kinetic threat, to individuals in the United States in the US homeland? Our assessment is it does not. Does it pose a threat to civilian aviation? Our assessment is it does not. Does it pose a significantly enhanced threat on the intelligence side? Our best assessment right now is that it does not.

 

Okay. So what's the point?  There doesn't seem to be any plausible motive for the Chinese to have sent the balloon over the U.S. intentionally. And no, it isn't "maneuverable" as reporters keep saying. It can probably be made to go up and down, and try to get lucky and catch an air current that's going approximately in the direction its operators want it to, but that's a best very imprecise. Since it is of no use for espionage, according to the U.S. military, it seems very likely that the Chinese are telling the truth when they say it went off course. 

 

Even if they aren't, and they have some inexplicable motive, the mass freak out in the U.S. media and political class is the really important lesson here. Republicans are claiming this incident proves that Joe Biden is "soft on China." What? I suppose he should retaliate by sending a balloon over China. That'll teach 'em. CNN spends 1/2 hour of every hour talking about this even though there's nothing to say. So their reporters say it's "hovering' over the U.S., and -- this really happened -- that it's filled with helium which could explode and rain debris. Uhm, no. Some congresscritter said it might be a biological weapon. Right. At 50,000 feet. 

Journalism is as much about what they choose to talk and write about as it is about what they say about what they choose to talk and write about. When they're stupid on both, they're really stupid.