I respectfully disagree.....the F/A-18 Hornet has the smell about it of a political project and a political airplane from the git-go. It was thrust on the Navy despite being unable, in tests, to fly on one engine -- a Navy requirement. It was a foundling aircraft whose career has been decidedly reminiscent of the F-3A Brewster Buffalo, some early models of which managed to turn in creditable service for the Finns during the Winter War, but the later, armored (at Naval Aviation insistence) versions flown by Marine Corps aviators during the Battle of Midway were dismal underperformers that were shamefully victimized in combat with Japanese fighters. Hardly a one of the Flying Marines who flew F-3A's at Midway survived the morning.
I smell rot, I smell pork, and I smell money. Where is the F-18 built? The JSF? By whom? This situation needs to be ameliorated, before American aviators start paying with their lives and we lose a carrier battle group somewhere.
Moreover, the whole idea of the "midget navy" of speedboats armed with hard-hitting smart peashooters and tin cans that look like the U.S.S. Monitor armed with a single 5" OTO gun is a subject that needs wider peer review. I'm not satisfied that these guys know what they're doing, and I think they're happily making tactical and operational decisions, and casting them in hardware, that imply much higher casualties down the road, in exchange for lower budgets now.
I think Dubya is a budget skinflint just like his Republican peers of 80 years ago, and that unrestrained by 9/11, he and Cheney would have pared down the Fleet and the armed forces generally the way their Harding-era predecessors did, and for the same reason: when it comes to public expenditures, they're cheap, because they don't want to ask their Fifth Avenue audience for tax revenues, or deny them a big tax cut. Discussion?