But just in case anybody is feeling patronized by the Pentagon's recommendation to maintain Hill Air Force Base and other military installations in this reddest of the red states, consider the case of South Dakota.

Ellsworth Air Force Base is the second-largest employer in that small-population state, and the relative ability of then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Republican challenger John Thune to preserve the base was a major issue in the last election.

Thune won, in part on the promises made by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to pull out all the stops to protect the base. All the stops were apparently not enough.

Friday the Pentagon recommended that Ellsworth be closed. Its B-1 bomber fleet will, if the Base Realignment and Closure Commission goes along, be consolidated with birds of its feather at Dyess Air Force Base near Abilene, Texas.

Even though Texas, the president's home state, was the winner in that equation, the fact that Thune's status as a giant-killer wasn't enough to rescue Ellsworth from Donald Rumsfeld's ax suggests that mission and effectiveness at least held their own against political considerations.

In other words, Hill AFB can be seen to have earned its own preservation, not simply to have benefited from Utah's Republican-heavy status.

Whatever the reasons - Utah's strong work ethic, an experienced and well-trained work force, able leadership or simply a mission that suits the desire for a lighter, faster-moving military - Hill's primary mission of maintaining the nation's fleet of F-16 fighter jets was determined to be not only necessary but well-done.

The economic devastation that would have resulted from a recommendation to close or reduce Hill was therefore avoided, we may allow ourselves to believe, in part because of the area's skilled work force. A reason, if ever there was one, to stress the modernization of the state's educational system so that when this exercise happens again - and it will happen again - the result might be the same.