F-35 News. They program office has lost control of the message.

Check this out from the American Interest.

On that last point, the F-35 team itself seems to agree, because an explosive report this week disclosed that it has been fudging the plane’s performance numbers to bolster the case for more appropriations funding. According to a Defense-Aerospace.com report (h/t James Fallows at The Altantic):

Recent improvements in F-35 reliability figures are due to changes in the way failures are counted and processed, but do not reflect any actual improvement, according to the latest report by the Pentagon’s Director Operational Test & Evaluation. […]
Three different types of data “massaging” are identified in the report: moving failures from one category to another, less important one; ignoring repetitive failures, thus inflating numbers of failure-free hours; and improper scoring of reliability. In all these instances, data reporting and processing rules were changed during the year for no other reason than to paint a more favorable picture.

If that isn't bad enough then check out this piece from that paragon of conservative values...The Weekly Standard...

Last fall, the Air Force tried a final gambit. Its spokesmen claimed that the F-35 program would be even more over budget and delayed if the A-10 weren’t “divested.” The latter’s defenders responded that getting rid of all 280-odd A-10s would save enough money to buy just 12 F-35s.
But the USAF wasn’t done yet. It claimed in November that the F-35’s crisis was a matter of maintenance personnel shortages and that the program could not flourish without the 800-odd maintenance people who currently work on the A-10. This was not true. As the well-informed War is Boring website quickly pointed out, there are thousands of maintenance personnel working on other aircraft types (including rarely used B-1B bombers and F-15 interceptors) who could easily be diverted to support the F-35.
Fortunately, Congress wasn’t gulled, and the latest National Defense Authorization Act forbade the USAF from retiring the A-10. It helped that the politicians fighting for the A-10 included not just McCain but also Sen. Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire, whose husband flew A-10s in Iraq, and Represent-ative Martha McSally, a retired Air Force colonel who herself flew A-10s in combat.

How many of you are familiar with the days leading up to the truncated buy of the F-22?

We heard that the airplane would perform not only air superiority but also attack targets on land...they even went so far as to label it F/A-22 at one point.  There was a push to retire F-15's early because it would make the USAF more efficient, even while putting into service an airplane that was more expensive to run.

The messaging got crazy.  The desperation was apparent.  In the end it failed.
The same thing is happening with the F-35.  I'm happy as hell that it is.