It's past time for Joe Biden to say something about the balloon(s)

It's a trend now.

For the third time in the last 3 days, an unidentified object was shot down — this time over Lake Huron — on Sunday by an American F-16 aircraft.

It’s the fourth object shot down over American territory in the last 8 days — the most notable of which was, obviously, the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed most of the continental United States before before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

Which is a lot! And deeply weird.

It’s the sort of thing that you might expect President Joe Biden to address. But, you’d be wrong.

Biden hasn’t said much of anything about the spate of objects being shot out of the air. The closest the president got to addressing it is when he said, in his State of the Union address last week, that “as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

Which is fine, I guess. For one balloon. But that was three unidentified aerial objects ago. (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday that intelligence officials believe the first 3 objects shot down were all balloons; no word on the 4th, which was shot down on Sunday.)

The simple fact is that, like it or not, there is a whole lot of uncertainty out in the country as it relates to objects. And into that void of information steps conspiracy theories — including about an alien invasion. (Yes, really.)

The White House tried to address those conspiracy theories Monday. “I know there have been questions and concerns about this but there is no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Still, this, from former Politico reporter Bryan Bender, is spot on:

Bryan Bender @BryanDBender

I can’t help but ask: at this stage where is the president? This is unprecedented. Four objects in nine days shot down for violating North American airspace. We need to hear from @POTUS, if for nothing else to set the nation at ease and tamp down conspiracies.

To me, the central question is this: Have we changed something in our monitoring process that means we are now picking up the existence of these balloons in ways we hadn’t previously? Or, is this a new phenomenon — a bevy of balloons being launched at/over the United States?

I suspect the answer is the former. Biden took a significant amount of criticism — mostly from Republicans but some from Democrats as well — when he let the original balloon float across the Midwest before shooting it down over the east coast.

It makes political sense to me that, in the wake of that first balloon incident, Biden and his administration are much more willing to act — and act quickly — when they become aware of objects violating American airspace.

But, that would constitute a change in American policy when it comes to dealing with these sort of objects, right? Like, we went from a don’t-immediately-shoot-them-down stance to one where we do.

If so, that’s the sort of thing that the country should know about!

And, not just that. The Biden administration should tell the country everything it knows about the balloons — obviously protecting military secrets — and quickly. The best way to combat the unsubstantiated rumors flying around is with facts. Unfortunately, we have precious few of them right now.

Like, it would be good to know from the administration if this CNN report — that intelligence officials have developed the ability to track these surveillance balloons in just the last year — is right. If so, it makes perfect sense why we are shooting down so many more now. But we need to hear that from the president.

The alternative explanation here is, of course, far scarier. That is, that the balloons — or other unidentified objects — are a new phenomenon, which the United States hasn’t ever had to deal with before and for which it lacks sufficient explanation.

That would explain some of the hesitance on the part of the administration to speak out — why talk when you’re just not sure? — but seems unlikely given that we now know that several of these balloons floated over the United States during the Trump administration.

The point here is that there’s a whole heck of a lot that the public doesn’t know. And with each passing day — and each passing object shot from the sky — confusion grows.

Biden’s passing mention of the first balloon incident is no longer sufficient. We need to hear from him in a far more fulsome way about what the heck is going on — and soon.