There are two kinds of "duds," as anyone who has set off fireworks will tell you. The first is relatively benign. It just doesn't go off. The second is much more dangerous. It does nothing when it is supposed to and then, unpredictably, it goes off, often taking your hand or your eyesight or sometimes your life with it.
The latest test of George W. Bush's version of the Star Wars anti-missile defense system was a dud of the first sort. It couldn't even muster the right stuff to blow-up on the launch pad. It just sat there and refused to do anything.
The intrepid Senator John Kyl, Republican of Arizona and a strong advocate of the program, said "one bum test" would not alter support for it. The Senator appears unaware that, having already spent more than $80 billion on the project, it has yet to have even one successful test.
And, of course, "The president remains firmly committed to moving forward on missile defense," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It's important that we move forward on this because the president's top responsibility is to do everything he can to protect the American people."
Sure. Do everything he can ... to protect the American people ... like spending billions more on a missile system that will only provoke our enemies while doing absolutely nothing to protect us instead of providing equipment to the troops in Iraq and firing Donald Rumsfeld, a dud of the second kind whose incompetence on a daily basis is costing hands and eyes and lives.
New York Times - Defense Missile for U.S. System Fails to Launch
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