My regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall several earlier missives wherein I excoriated a radical decision made by a certain former president, in the final hours of his administration, to arbitrarily and capriciously yank U.S. Space Command from its logical home in Colorado Springs and to move it to Alabama. Trump’s motives were clear: he wanted to punish Colorado, that voted for Biden and to reward Alabama, which was solidly for him. So, despite earlier recommendations by the senior military leadership to keep Space Command where it already was, Trump said everyone should pack their bags for Huntsville.

Happily, although far more slowly than I expected, the Biden administration reversed that decision, as explained in an excellent story in Colorado Politics. After a careful review, the military again recommended keeping things as they were, especially wise given the billions of dollars that had already been invested in Colorado Springs-based infrastructure.

This issue was one of the very few that completely united our elected officials here in the Centennial State. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed Trump’s order had been wrong. Gov. Jared Polis called the Biden decision “great news for Colorado and our national security.”  And in one of the more surprising comments, hard-right (and the fellow that beat me in the 2008 election for the House) U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn actually said something nice about Joe Biden, when he stated: “Colorado Springs has always been the legitimate home of U.S. Space Command’s headquarters, and I am delighted that today’s decision validates this fact. I commend the Biden administration for prioritizing national security above political interests and keeping USSPACECOM in its rightful home at Peterson Space Force Base.” I added the italics, and I think I’ll re-post that last sentence from time to time, just to remind Mr. Lamborn that he did, in fact, praise Biden.

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I’m not above gloating a bit, and so on the day the decision was announced, I searched on Google the name of the major news outlets in Huntsville to see what they were saying down there, and it was a remarkable trip into the surreal. Happily, the CoPo article does a terrific job of covering the Biden decision from the other end of the issue, with the alligator tears and faux outrage from Alabama’s elected folks. My irony meter may need to be replaced after seeing the rage from Huntsville, wherein the GOPers down there decried the “politics” of the situation. Recall, please, as noted above, that Trump’s original whim to move Space Command came as a purely partisan order with only hours left in office, but to these folks, Biden’s carefully thought out, over months, decision was “playing politics.”

In yet another example of today’s GOP being fully in Trump’s pocket, and being disconnected from reality, one of Alabama’s senators attacked the decision, asserting that “President Biden has irresponsibly decided to yank a military decision out of the Air Force’s hands in the name of partisan politics.” My favorite ersatz indignation is from U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, the Republican who represents the Huntsville area, who fumed, “It is shameful that the Biden administration is ignoring what is best for our nation’s security and is instead using their woke agenda to make this decision.” I didn’t realize a decision not to move a massive military organization was somehow being “woke.” 

If your own irony meter can take it, let’s take a look at another Alabama House member, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers. This Trump acolyte is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and he has been using that powerful position to pressure the military to make the move to Huntsville. And if you want to talk about a real example of playing politics with our national security, you need look no further than Rogers’s repeated routine of blocking DOD funding requests. Yup, he was essentially blackmailing the Pentagon by withholding dollars the military needed day to day to keep us safe. How petty was Rogers? Well, part of his shenanigans was to cut the Secretary of the Air Force’s travel budget by half and to halt any spending on Space Command offices in Colorado Springs, to include minor upgrades. Need that window fixed? Want that drinking fountain repaired? Sorry, no, Congressman Rogers objects.

Can you imagine the bogus outrage we’d hear from GOPers if, say, a Dem chair of Arms Services took such an action? I suspect Rogers and Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (whom I criticized in my last column for holding up military promotions over a political issue) must be best buddies, given their willingness to hurt the military for political reasons while claiming to help it.

So, dear readers, what have we learned? We know that in response to Trump’s unreasoned and knee-jerk partisan effort at “punishing” Colorado for voting for Democrats, the Biden team (and the Pentagon leadership) did a careful (and easily defended) review, and concluded that common sense was correct: it makes no sense to move a command when it is functioning fine right where it is. Trump’s petty and churlish order to move was vacated by a thoughtful and reasoned order to stand down.

One can only wonder if, say, Trump had won reelection, how many military facilities we would see being ordered out of states that Trump lost and to states he won. I’m serious. I don’t think we’ve ever had such a petty person as POTUS. Nixon might come close, but Trump wins the prize as the most vindictive and foolish Oval Office resident we’ve had in our great nation’s history. Were Trump still in office, or should he return there, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Air Force Academy ordered to move to Mississippi, for example. Oh, and you know Space Command would be sent packing to Huntsville.

Stay tuned…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.