In an early Lord of the Rings scene, Frodo Baggins informs Gandalf that he is late to Bilbo Baggins's party. Gandalf responds, "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to." In fairness to Gandalf, he did arrive before the party with plenty of time to set up and visit with friends. He wasn't truly late.

But we'd get a different story if Gandalf showed up at the end of the books or movies. Joe Biden is trying to say something similar. He's praising the fact that he shot the Chinese spy balloon down. But this came after it'd had already appeared in the continental United States, traversed half the country, and with all Americans watching the federal government not respond.

Joe Biden wants us to thank him for shooting down a spy balloon that was leaving the United States. This comes after average citizens from Montana to the Carolinas saw, videoed, or took pictures of the spy balloon. Joe Biden wasn't early or late. He was a non-factor.

Joe Biden wants credit for showing up.

The story the White House wants everyone to believe is that Joe Biden was strong and forthright. He wanted the balloon shot down right away, but he got overruled by his military leadership. Biden told reporters:

"On Wednesday when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down – on Wednesday – as soon as possible ... They decided, without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do that was as it got over water."

Instead of taking responsibility for a spy balloon traveling the United States, Biden blames the military. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the spy balloon "was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States."

The idea that it was better to let the balloon travel the entire United States, doing its surveillance job, instead of shooting it down to stop it from completing that mission is ludicrous.

Biden wanted to ignore the balloon. Amateurs found it.

Further, we know the balloon was here much earlier than reported. The Biden White House first learned about the balloon on January 28th and watched it float into the United States. They had no intentions of telling anyone or doing anything. They only said something once amateur astronomers in Montana noticed the spy balloon and started reporting on it. That spurred a story in Billings, Montana newspapers.

Think about that for a moment. America has a massive contingent of amateur astronomers, weather chasers, photographers, and aviation enthusiasts. China's balloon floated into American air space, and average Americans immediately found it - it was the Biden administration that believed no one would know.

That's moronically out of touch. Something like that is never going to fly in the social media age. I personally saw the balloon pop up in all the weather and radar groups I follow. People were very interested in an unidentified object floating through American airspace. The geniuses in the White House believed no one would notice a thing you could observe with the naked eye.

Indeed, some of the best footage we have of the balloon getting shot down near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, comes from these same amateurs. Within an hour of the US military shooting down the balloon, I watched 4K footage of the event. There was no hiding the balloon.

Biden the non-factor.

This entire foreign policy disaster from the White House has all the markers of a President who didn't want to do anything. It smells like when Joe Biden was Vice President, and he was the lone person who didn't think the United States should kill Osama bin Laden. We're fortunate Barack Obama looked at Joe like he was crazy and did what any sane American would do in that situation - take out an evil murderer.

Joe Biden didn't "take care" of the situation. He ignored it, dithered, and refused to shoot down a balloon that his own military said was actively spying on sensitive American locations. What more reason does he need to shoot it down?

Biden and his defenders are falling back on the idea that civilian lives were in danger. That's utterly ridiculous. There is plenty of open land between Alaska, Canada, Montana, and the Dakotas to shoot down a balloon and track the debris. As President of the United States, Joe Biden had full authority to order the military to shoot down the ballon and figure out the logistics.

Biden made the choice not to shoot the balloon.

We have the best and most capable military on the planet. Our drone pilots can take out car passengers without collateral damage. Joe Biden cannot blame military leadership for not shooting the balloon. Joe Biden is the one who chose not to shoot down the balloon. He didn't take care of it until after China had gotten multiple days to spy over America unimpeded.

Joe Biden abandoned American citizens in his rush to leave Afghanistan. Joe Biden's policies exacerbated inflation. Joe Biden allowed a Chinese spy balloon to travel freely in American airspace. Rebecca Grant, an Air Force systems specialist and president of IRIS Independent Research, told Stripes, "Shooting down China's balloon was indeed the F-22's first air-to-air kill ... Americans watched an unfriendly aircraft get shot down over our skies."

Joe Biden wasn't early or late. Joe Biden did the absolute least he could do. If he did anything less, the balloon would still be airborne. It's hard to imagine any previous President taking the action this one just did.