I dont normally read Peggy Noonan's articles because, well, because of the idiotic things she says but her op-ed today caught my eye. Three quarters of it is so dead on, I cant understand how she derailed it with her conclusion.

The article is about the crash of a Navy plane in San Diego last December. The fighter plane crashed into a neighborhood and killed an entire Korean family - mother, grandmother, and two small children.

The article is about how the Marine Corp (during the Obama Presidency) handled the investigation and how they stood up and took accountability. The article is about how rare such a thing has been, (for the past 8 years).

It is a great, poignant article up until the end when Noonan tries to turn it into an attack on Obama. Its worth a read until Noonan tries to make a point.

A Tragedy of Errors, and an Accounting After a crash, the Marines set an example.

By PEGGY NOONAN

MARCH 6, 2009

Wall Street Journal

Lee's husband, a grocer named Dong Yun Yoon, was at work. The day after he'd lost his family, he humbled and awed San Diego by publicly forgiving the pilot—"I know he did everything he could"—and speaking of his faith—"I know God is taking care of my family."

His grace and generosity were staggering, but there was growing local anger at the military. Why was the disabled plane over land? The Marines launched an investigation—of themselves. This Wednesday the results were announced.

They could not have been tougher, or more damning. The crash, said Maj. Gen. Randolph Alles, the assistant wing commander for the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, was "clearly avoidable," the result of "a chain of wrong decisions." Mechanics had known since July of a glitch in the jet's fuel-transfer system; the Hornet should have been removed from service and fixed, and was not. The young pilot failed to read the safety checklist. He relied on guidance from Marines at Miramar who did not have complete knowledge or understanding of his situation. He should have been ordered to land at North Island. He took an unusual approach to Miramar, taking a long left loop instead of a shorter turn to the right, which ate up time and fuel.

Twelve Marines were disciplined; four senior officers, including the squadron commander, were removed from duty. Their military careers are, essentially, over. The pilot is grounded while a board reviews his future.

This wasn't damage control, it was taking honest responsibility. And as such, in any modern American institution, it was stunning.

By contrast, he says, when the economy came crashing down, "nowhere did we see a board come out and say: 'This is what happened, these are the decisions these particular people made, and this was the result. They are no longer a part of our organization.' There was no timeline of events or laymen's explanation of how a credit derivative was actually derived. We did not see congressmen get on television with charts and eviscerate their organization and say, 'These were the men who in 2003 allowed Freddie and Fannie unlimited rein over mortgage securities.' Instead we saw . . . everybody against everybody else with no one stepping forth and saying, 'We screwed up.'" There is no one in national leadership who could convincingly "assign blame," and no one "who could or would accept it."