Jim Baker and the "REALISTS" I lay this at your door, as well : Pelosi intends to significantly reduce the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program

When Robert Gates whose ideological scion is a no ideology except maybe the dollar, Jim Baker, replaced Donald Rumsfeld, he immediately moved to reduce the program to replace the 750 F-15 C's and D's with some 380 F-22's, dropping it to only 183 aircraft.

His flawed and now we can see irresponsible reasoning was that the mission of the F-22, air superiority could be filled with the many more but less individually capable F-35's we would acquire.

Now we have Nancy Pelosi telling the men and women who serve above, that they will have to take their chances with designed in the late 60's, and produced in the 70's and 80's F-15's and F-16's and F-18's which have NO STEALTH whatsoever, and which were shot down by Saddam's pitiful efforts in 1991, getting close to TWENTY YEARS AGO

Since the design and production of our F-15, 16 and F-18's, Russia has designed and sold the SU-27 and it's VSTOL derivative, the SU-30, and SU-34. They have placed some of these aircraft in the hands of the Venezuelans and the Iranians. The Chinese have developed the F-10 from the Israeli Lavi plans.

Since Gates decided essentially, we don't need F-22's to fight the Iraqi jihadis (the only major kind of war HE DECIDED WE WILL BE FIGHTING) we have a China moving 1000's of SLBM's opposite a Taiwan which produces what % of motherboards, CPU's, ASIC's, and GPU's in the world?
A China following our aircraft carriers every day with their new subs, a Russia planting their flag on the floor of the arctic to claim the resources beneath the ocean.

We have all these challenges. It's up to people like Pelosi to FIND A WAY, not tell our men and women they will have to just fly 35 year old fighters against new missiles, aircraft and radars if they wish to serve.

READ IT, from GERTZ:

WASHINGTON -- Congressional sources said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to significantly reduce the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in 2009 as the U.S. military withdraws from Iraq.

The sources said Ms. Pelosi has concluded that cutting U.S. military procurement of JSF would save tens of billions of dollars required to save the nation's banking system.

"The Democratic leadership agrees that there is a clear need to reevaluate JSF as well as military requirements post-Iraq," a senior congressional source said.

The sources said Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in Congress believe that the $1 trillion JSF program could be significantly scaled down. They said the Democratic leadership also doubted the utility of the short-takeoff and vertical landing F-35B. The U.S. Marine Corps had been expected to operate about 340 F-35Bs.

"We have to be realistic," a congressional aide said. "Congress wants to pull troops out of Iraq and deal with the credit crisis. The place to cut is clearly from defense programs."

In July 2008, the Defense Department released $1 billion to acquire six F-35B STOVL aircraft as part of the second Low Rate Initial Production contract for JSF. The second LRIP contract, awarded in May, was set at $2.2 billion.

The sources said JSF has also been jeopardized by European Union states who plan to cut their defense budgets amid the global credit crunch. They said Britain, the leading partner in JSF, was re-evaluating procurement commitments, particularly that of the F-35B. Italy has also reviewed its requirements.

JSF manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, has been urging the U.S. military and international clients to submit orders for the F-35 over the next few months. One target has been Israel, who has formally requested up to 75 F-35s over the next decade.

"Israel is holding back on any order because it doesn't know whether Obama and Congress will commit to a continuation of current military aid levels," the congressional aide said.

Forget what Europe might do. These aircraft are already a second choice to ultimately protect our men on the ground in a war. That's what air superiority is REALLY FOR. The F-35 was never designed to be the ultimate air superiority weapon, and now the much fewer number of them will be more precious in a risky environment.

This EXACT situation HAS OCCURRED before

If Nancy Pelosi wants to say we are too poor to afford the best weapons systems for those who serve, LET HER SAY SO, and let's debate THAT judgement.