F-35 happy talk gets a dose of McCain realism.

I won't lie to you.  John McCain has pissed me off more times than I can count.  He has never met a war he didn't like and is a "immigration reformer" with ideas that quite honestly puzzle me.  When it comes to defense spending he is the Hawk of all Hawks so when I saw this,  I sat up and paid attention.  Make note boys and girls.  This guy is on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

via DoD Buzz.

Days after the U.S. Defense Department signaled an improving relationship with Lockheed Martin Corp. over the cost of the F-35 fighter jet, Sen. John McCain called the program “one of the great national scandals.”
McCain, a Republican from Arizona and the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, was speaking during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to consider the nominations of several White House appointments, including Deborah Lee James to become the next secretary of the Air Force.
McCain criticized the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as the government’s first trillion-dollar acquisition program (including sustainment costs). Its repeated cost overruns “have made it worse than a disgrace,” he said. Despite recent efforts to reduce prices on the next batch of aircraft, “it’s still one of the great, national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars are concerned,” he said.

I keep saying it and you keep telling me I'm wrong.

This program is between a rock and a hard place.

Between Democrats that hate spending on the military, Tea Party Republicans that hate wasteful, expensive and fraudulent government spending no matter the department and now the leader of the Republican Hawks coming out against the F-35, its days are numbered.

Air Power Zealots everywhere beware.  Your favorite toy is about to get a haircut.