“Think tanks develop into a more mature institution when they are willing to say unpleasant things about their friends. But CNAS hasn’t done that yet, and they haven’t really had the opportunity to,” said American Enterprise Institute defense studies head Tom Donnelly. “That’s a benchmark of whether they can withstand the test of time.”

Yeah, like the time Donnelly said the surge didn’t achieve its objectives with regard to Iraqi politics; or denounced Dick Cheney’s conceptions of national security; or called out John McCain’s presidential campaign for, I don’t know, saying McCain wouldn’t meet with the Spanish prime minister. There’s a good point to be made about the Center for a New American Security having yet to critique, for instance, the counterinsurgents in the Obama administration, many of whom matriculated from the think tank. But there’s an unfortunate tendency in Washington to measure intellectual honesty by the willingness to attack your friends, rather than, say, the merits of a particular critique.

No doubt there is a genuine tenderness in the president’s feelings for soldiers. But there is little of the praise of warriors in his words. Gratitude or sympathy for suffering is quite different from honoring a sacrifice. I am sure Obama will honor his pledge to continue to ensure that people in uniform “form the backbone of our middle class.” But the pay, the benefits, the programs alone are never enough and never, ultimately, what make the call to service worth answering.

“Little of the praise of warriors?” I suppose all that stuff about “Thanks in great measure to your service, the situation in Iraq has improved” or how “in an age when so many people and institutions have acted irresponsibly, you did the opposite – you volunteered to bear the heaviest burden” doesn’t count.

Donnelly says that Obama’s promises on troops’ and veterans’ health care and economic well-being is “a very subtle form of the soldier-as-victim trope that is fast becoming an Iraq legacy.” That seems like an overwrought description of the national mood. There have been a handful of Hollywood flops that might have condescendingly treated soldiers as PTSD’d automatons, but beyond that, the treatment of Iraq veterans by the country has been, I think it’s fair to say, respectful verging on laudatory. Donnelly seems to be caught in something of a Vietnam Syndrome here.

More importantly, and to be a bit personal for a moment, I’ve heard some real horror stories from friends who’ve come home from Iraq and Afghanistan about how hard it is to get appointments with consistent and competent Veterans’ Affairs case workers, and VA health care is supposed to be the best in the nation. Is it treating my friends as “victims” to say that the country owes them a lot more than a pep talk about what a great job they did? Or to say that traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder are serious afflictions that require sustained and well-funded programs to treat? Just because people join the military to serve a cause greater than self isn’t an excuse not to provide veterans with the money they need to prosper when their wars end.

Keeping the production line of this model aerospace program open currently requires no additional taxpayer dollars, and is not a rescue or bailout. Rather, it will allow us to maintain a healthy program that delivers considerable economic benefit while providing our Air Force with appropriate numbers of the best fighter aircraft ever made. Production of this aircraft is in jeopardy—and with it more than 95,000 American jobs, over $12 billion in national economic activity, and the superiority of America’s Air Force.

I don’t know who’s paying for the website, but Lockheed Martin, the main manufacturer of the F-22, is a safe bet. Chambliss certainly knew to cite the “95,000 American jobs” talking point to Gates yesterday. I note as well that Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, a former Lockheed Martin official, recently wrote along the same lines, specifically urging Congress and the Pentagon to “maintain F-22 production” as part of a “defense stimulus.” Watch this argument expand in the coming weeks.

Obama seems poised to reformulate the United States’ foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The administration will likely seek to cajole Iran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions, coax Syria into abandoning its revisionist history, and repair America’s image in the Arab world by pushing for a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But how realistic are these endeavors, given recent events in Gaza and estimates that Iran is less than a year away from a nuclear weapon? In addition, old challenges persist as Russia attempts to pull its former satellites back into its sphere of influence and as China’s intentions darken the horizon.

None would dare dream the conclusions are built into the framing of the questions. Who’s better equipped than AEI, really, to assess the Obama administration’s connection to reality?