Damn right, the defence of the carrier itself will be at the top of the priority list. Anyone who seriously thinks otherwise needs their bumps felt. There is no way that the current generation of political and military leadership are going to let that thing even remotely close to Air To Surface missile range of anything. During Corporate, Woodward had damn good reason to keep the carriers as far out of the way as he could.
Cant help but think that there are some of the True Believers, who are so determined for this particular solution to succeed in everything they project onto it, despite questions and shortcomings at many levels being raised by the rest of us heretics; But of course, if the day ever comes that they end up picking bits of it up off the ocean floor because of an unforseen/unexpected calamity, the temptation to say "we told you so" might be hard to suppress.
For what its worth, I cant help but feel this entire carrier project from inception to delivery has been a Pork Barrel triumph of industrial strategy over strategic requirements and defence requirements.... but what the hell do I know...?