A friend emails in response to this Washington Post story on the F-22 (which Noonan wrote up below):
[I]t contains an amazing error that, I think, reflects the way the playing field is tilted against defense; all the more remarkable because Greg Jaffe, who’s a good defense reporter, contributed to the article. They described the Air Force as requesting “$400 billion” to buy “20 more” F-22s. That would be, oh, about $20 billion per plane. Not even the F-22 costs that much. Indeed, the F-22 program, development and 187 Raptors, didn’t cost one-tenth of that. Imagine if the Post had gotten an Obamacare number wrong by, well, a real-live “order of magnitude.” This is what passes for an insider story on a defense program.
