Heather Cox Richardson brings some much-needed sanity to the media meltdown over the Chinese surveillance balloon:

Republicans have used the balloon fiasco to score political points, flooding media with statements about Chinese spying on the U.S. and complaints that no one would have tried such a thing under former president Trump. On Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said, “Biden should shoot down the Chinese spy balloon immediately…. President Trump would have never tolerated this. President Trump would have never tolerated many things happening to America.” (In fact, Trump tolerated at least three similar events, and as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, Greene should know this.) Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) complained that “[t]he administration failed to protect our border and now has failed to protect our skies.”

It’s Saturday night, so I will be a bit snarky: they need to get a grip. A key aspect of any country’s national security is spying, and of course China and the U.S. are spying on each other. Shooting the balloon down as soon as it was spotted would have endangered Americans and made learning anything from it more difficult. 

Congress is like a pack of dogs – they’ll bark at anything. Though a pack of dogs would be smarter and more likable.