These reports raise all sorts of questions about competence and credibility at the White House … to the extent we expect either at this point. When ground observers in Montana first spotted China’s spy balloon, Joe Biden and his team made it seem as though it had taken them by surprise. Later, we learned that NORAD had first picked up the anomaly over the Aleutian Islands, but didn’t know what it was.

Now, we find out that “US officials” had tracked it since its launch in China, as both CBS News and the Washington Post report — and still let it traverse the continental US before finally shooting it down. Only after it was spotted by ground observers did they react at all, and even then played dumb:

U.S. officials first spotted the Chinese spy balloon when it lifted off from Hainan Island in China last month and continued to track it as it flew over Hawaii and Alaska for a full week, before flying over the rest of the country, reports @edokeefe. https://t.co/T5T5Zx8bkv pic.twitter.com/iszracOalN

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) February 15, 2023

U.S. intelligence officials were tracking the spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month since it lifted off from the south coast of China, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

According to U.S. officials, after takeoff, the spy balloon drifted east in the direction of Guam and Hawaii and then went north to Alaska and entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28. Given the path, it’s possible that the balloon was blown off course by weather, but U.S. officials said that once it came south over the continental United States, it was being controlled by China.

The Washington Post’s sources concur — to a point, anyway. Their assessment is that the balloon went off course over Guam, but that spin has its own problems:

U.S. monitors watched as the balloon settled into a flight path that would appear to have taken it over the U.S. territory of Guam. But somewhere along that easterly route, the craft took an unexpected northern turn, according to several U.S. officials, who said that analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device.

The balloon floated over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands thousands of miles away from Guam, then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south into the continental United States, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence. A U.S. fighter jet shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, a week after it crossed over Alaska.

This new account suggests that the ensuing international crisis that has ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been at least partly the result of a mistake.

So what we’re hoping is that Beijing is as incompetent as Biden and his team? Slender reeds, man.

This explanation makes little sense, however. The balloon clearly didn’t just drift. It went over sensitive military installations, and then hovered to collect intelligence, likely signals intel. As CBS notes more generally, that shows that the balloon operator had control of the vehicle the whole time. Furthermore, since we don’t have much in the way of SIGINT in the Pacific once you get past Guam or Hawaii, the obvious target of such a mission would be the US mainland and its defensive military installations. If that wasn’t the mission, then China would have downed the balloon on their own over international waters once they supposedly lost control of it.

Let’s return to the main point, though. If the White House knew about this balloon and its provenance since its launch, why did it allow the balloon to get as far as Montana? Why didn’t they shoot it down over the Aleutians, when it became clear that its path would take it over the US mainland? It’s not as if they couldn’t shoot it down there; Biden ordered it shot down over the Atlantic coast, well after the balloon had collected all of the intel it possibly could access and almost certainly transmitted it back to China, too. The right time to shoot the balloon down would have been before it arrived, and before anyone could eyeball it and make it into an international story. Had they reacted properly and competently, it’s likely that none of us would have known about the balloon at all.

And that’s not the only question, either. If the CBS and Washington Post reports are accurate — and granted, that’s asking a lot these days — then the White House flat-out lied about the balloon from the beginning. And the impotent shooting spree targeting benign aerial vehicles that has followed looks more like a cover-up of their lies, which served to hide their incompetence at airspace security.

Incompetence is bad enough. Combine it with dishonesty and cover-ups, and it becomes a national crisis of confidence in the Biden administration and its primary job — to secure the United States. That’s why Joe Biden’s not answering questions about it now, as Ed O’Keefe notes in a refreshing if subtle rebuke at the end of his report, and talking about the economy … where Biden has also been less than honest and less than competent for the last two years. And we have two more years to go with this set of incompetents.