April 8-9, 2009: Retired General Promotes Defunded Fighter during Fox News Appearance

Retired Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney appears on Fox News to discuss piracy off the coast of Somalia. During the discussion, McInerney offers a plug for the F-22 Raptor fighter plane currently facing defunding (see March 17, 2009). McInerney says: “I’d put F-22s and combat air patrol out there, two of them, with tankers.… The reason I’d put the F-22s is because they can go 1.6 to Mach 2, and they have a very quick reaction time and a 20 millimeter cannon.” Neither McInerney nor Fox News informs their viewers that McInerney is a former consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor who builds the F-22. [Think Progress, 4/9/2009] The day after McInerney’s appearance, reporter Ryan Tate observes that McInerney has been involved in previous instances of promoting defense contractors’ interests on television news shows (see Early 2002 and Beyond, April 19, 2003, April 14-16, 2006, Late 2006, and Late April, 2008). Of the F-22, Tate writes: “He neglected to mention virtually every US fighter made in the last 30 years carries such a cannon (usually the six-barrel M-61 Vulcan), including the F/A-18 Hornet already in use by the US Navy.… He also fails to mention that, no matter how fast the F-22 might be, it can’t be based off an aircraft carrier. So its reaction time could never be as good (from a land base on, say, the Arabian Peninsula) as a Hornet or other existing Navy jet floating in the waters nearest the pirates. Finally, McInerney fails to mention that, though capable of ground attack, the F-22 is optimized for air-to-air operations, i.e., shooting down other fighters.” [Gawker, 4/9/2009]