Whether you want to call it a rescue or not and play semantics or metaphors all night is your absolute right, but it doesn't change the failure of Starliner in this case.
Is it though?
> the face value of each seat has been estimated by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) to be around US$55 million. This contrasts with the 2014 Soyuz launch price of US$76 million per seat for NASA astronauts
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/astronauts-would-h...
The US spent extra money funding two separate vendors.
One vendor exhibited a high level of risk in their first return.
The astronauts were able to be returned on the second, already proven vendor.
That's a great place to be in!
The alternative, having to return astronauts on a high risk vehicle because it's the only option, is not a place we ever want to be in.
> One vendor exhibited a high level of risk in their first return.
> The astronauts were able to be returned on the second, already proven vendor.
It's easy(ish) to go fast and break things.
It's much harder to go fast and break things, except also never break things when it really matters.
So anomalies that might be acceptable during ascent would be unacceptable during decent.
Personally? I'm glad Boeing launched.
I wish they were perfect technically, but I also realize that an infinite amount of time and money doesn't protect against unknown-unknowns.
IMHO, they should be operating more like SpaceX (and the earlier days of the US space program) -- using calculated risk and engineering to decide when it's reasonable to do an inherently risky thing, when doing so is needed to move the entire program forward.