A tactless remark that Gov. Paul LePage made earlier this month at a Pratt & Whitney defense plant grabbed headlines, but the real importance of the event seems to have escaped the notice of Maine’s media.

LePage, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and state House Speaker Marc Eves were the stars of what was billed by Pratt & Whitney as a “special employee appreciation event” at the contractor’s 877,000-square-foot plant in North Berwick on Aug. 9. There they got the chance to sit in the pilot’s seat of an F-35 Lightning II fighter jet simulator.

The simulator, according to Pratt & Whitney’s press release, allowed these politician-turned-armchair-top-guns, “to see how advanced stealth, fighter agility and integrated information will enable pilots to survive and operate effectively in various projected threat environments.”

As he strapped himself into the simulator, LePage joked to a nearby guide, “I want to find the Press Herald building and blow it up.” As the governor’s zingers go, this was a relatively inoffensive one, though it certainly got the attention of members of the media, who were not amused.

Yet there was a far more important story behind the political theater, which was overlooked in the furor over LePage’s remark. It was a story about how Pentagon weapons procurement bridges the divide and breaks the gridlock of American politics in a way that often proves harmful to the national interest.

Gov. LePage is a Tea Party Republican, Sen. Collins a moderate Republican and Eves a liberal Democrat. They may not agree on much, but they all agree that Maine’s getting a piece of the F-35 project pie is the best thing to hit this state since, well, the whoopie pie.

Big defense companies like Lockheed Martin, the lead F-35 contractor, which boasted net sales of over $47 billion in 2012, have discovered that best way to get political support, approval and funding for a controversial mammoth weapons system is to spread the rewards so widely that everyone has a stake in its success.

A Lockheed Martin company spokesman just about said as much when he identified the motive behind the Aug. 9, event — “that the people who are so vital to the success of this program have an opportunity to experience firsthand what a fifth-generation fighter can do.” He may have been referring to Pratt & Whitney’s North Berwick employees, but I tend to think he really had his political guests in mind.

The F-35 program uses suppliers in 46 states and employs more than 125,000 people. Given that kind of enticement, what senator, congressman, governor or state legislator is going to oppose it?

Gov. LePage declared that the F-35 program is “critical to national security.” Sen. Collins gushed, “I am honored to represent Maine and to have the opportunity to see each and every day the contributions that the people in Maine make in building the F-35 and supporting our national defense.”.

Not to be outdone, Eves, who represents North Berwick, observed that Pratt & Whitney’s “partnership with Lockheed Martin on the F-35 program benefits our military, but also benefits those here at home in terms of economic development and jobs. I look forward to the continued ramp up of the program over the years to come.”

I hate to dampen this celebratory atmosphere, but there’s a problem with the F-35. In fact, there are two problems. It’s colossally expensive, and it’s probably unnecessary for America’s defense.

This advanced aircraft is a single-seat, single-engine, all-weather fighter with stealth capability and complex avionics that is supposed to satisfy the future needs of the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines by being produced in three variants – a conventional takeoff, a short takeoff/vertical landing, and a carrier-based model. (Since there won’t be any two-seater models for training new pilots, simulators, like the one displayed at Pratt & Whitney, are a necessary accessory).

Contrary to common sense, the F-35 went into production concurrently with its design phase, causing huge cost overruns because of the need to correct design errors and retrofit planes already built. Pentagon officials have also excoriated Lockheed Martin for mismanaging the project and gouging the government on costs, and prospective foreign allied government buyers have raised concerns about its performance and safety. 

The estimated average procurement cost (including development cost) per aircraft has risen from about $69 million to $137 million between 2001 and 2012, assuming a production target of 2,457 units. So far the Pentagon has put nearly $400 billion into the project and expects to spend about $1.5 trillion over the next 50 years to develop, build and operate the planes.

If the F-35 were the unbeatable weapon of the future, it might be a worthwhile investment. It’s essentially designed for air-to-air combat, for striking fixed and mobile ground targets on the battlefield, and for reconnaissance. But in wars of the future, it may not even be deployable if the enemy uses long-range weapons to destroy the air bases, aircraft carriers and aerial tankers on which it depends.

Late last year, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank, assembled teams of defense experts to find ways to trim defense spending. They recommended cutting back on or canceling the F-35 program altogether in favor of stealthy, unmanned drones which could survive in contested airspace. Drones have already proven their usefulness in tracking and killing terrorists and may be able to accomplish the mission for which the F-35 is designed without causing sticker shock.

Yet the F-35’s procurement momentum appears unstoppable, because it has garnered so much political support at all levels.

Military-procurement spending may provide a lot of welcome jobs, but, unless that spending enhances national security and is carried on in a cost-effective way, the Pentagon may as well hire legions of highly paid workers to dig and then backfill ditches.

Hopefully our elected officials will have the clarity of vision and courage to see the F-35 for what it is –- at best, an unproven weapons system, at worst, a huge waste of taxpayer money –- and stop extolling its virtues in order to ingratiate themselves with Maine’s voters.

And the next time Gov. LePage wants to take an exciting ride in a jet simulator, I’d suggest he buy a video-game that allows him to virtually bomb any newspaper he desires, including the Sun Journal.

Elliott L. Epstein, a local attorney, is founder of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He is the author of “Lucifer’s Child,” a recently published book about the 1984 oven-death murder of Angela Palmer. He may be reached at [email protected].