Geez, I read this thread last night when it was only a couple posts long and decided to stay out of it...oh well, here goes!
I'll start off with the OPs post. Sex scandals? Those have been going on in every service, university, profession, political party, etc. forever. So why would the USAF be immune? Same with drugs, they are in everywhere also. Of all the services, the USAF is probably the hardest on drugs. You get caught with anything drug or drug related, and it's immediate discharge, or jail then discharge. We do random urinalysis tests quite often, even while in Afghanistan. Cutting forces? People cost money, and the country doesn't have any. Everyone is cutting, thats not news. Security Forces is the largest single career field in the Air Force so it's no wonder they will have more cuts than others. The are also being augmented more and more with civilians on base.
Ok and for everyone else...
Why the hell would an Air Force pilot be as good as a Navy carrier pilot at landing on a carrier? What a stupid comparison. Oh by the way Bob, what do you think those "weenie" Air Force folks were saying about you being on a boat away from the fighting? Did your Carrier get regularly rocketed, mortared, and attacked? The Air Force bases there did.
As for basic training, the Air Force has lengthened it from six to eight weeks to add more training. When I went through (six weeks), I spent hours making sure my underwear was folded, there wasn't a spec of lint or dirt within 20 feet of my area, standing in a formation for hours per day, and all the other idiotic mindless things that were somehow important. It was both the easiest and dumbest thing I have ever done. Now at least they aren't as ridiculous about that stuff and spend more time on academic and physical training.
There also is a lot of "so-and-so says", "I heard", and "back in my days" going on here, but I'm just going to ignore those.
The current wars have been mostly ground wars, so not much need for traditional Air Force, other than close air support and other behind the scenes support. The Air Force has instead supported them heavily by assisting with, or taking over jobs, from the ground combat forces when they needed help. Air Force truck drivers in Iraq were right there getting blown up by IEDs right beside the Army drivers. Air Force engineers were (are?) traveling remote Afghanistan building and repairing tiny bases. At one point in Afghanistan, Air Force EOD was taking care of more IEDs (roadside bombs, car bombs, suicide bombs, etc) than the Army was. I could go on and on with endless examples, but you get the point.
And just because I'm a "candy ass", here is a story from a run-of-the-mill mission on my last Afghanistan deployment (which actually was the slowest and most boring out of my seven total). I'm TSgt Horton, BTW. Apparently some general thought it was novel that three separate Air Force units were involved with, and vital to, an Army Infantry dismounted operation to clear villages, even though we had been doing the same mission for years.
http://www.afcent.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123337524