Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The 9/11 photo op
I was pretty busy yesterday -- in New York, actually -- so by the time I got to the ridiculous "9/11 photo op" story I did not have anything original to add. I suppose I could have pointed out that "stupid is as stupid does" or ask "are these the people we want to put in charge of our health care" or say the almost de rigueur "can you imagine the reaction from the media if Bush had been this stupid?" or "now we know why they are more worried by the damage done by waterboarding than the damage done by terrorism -- they do not understand the latter," but there is nothing original in these.
Seriously, though, watch this video of New Yorkers panicking at the sight of the low-flying jet with the trailing fighters and then explain this stupidity. The people who hatched this idea or signed off on it really do not understand what 9/11 was all about. My concern is that they are actually senior enough -- the White House signed off on the offending "mission" -- to influence American policy.
MORE: Patterico makes a good point in this last post-script.
FURIOUSLY MORE: You have to love that the New York Times noted in both its story and the caption to the accompanying photograph that President Obama was "furious." Apparently no-drama Obama keeps his cool when some dictator lectures him or, we hope, there is a real crisis, but if his image is at stake he becomes "furious." You can almost hear Rahm Emanuel and the President talking this through:
"Sir, much as you hate the drama, this time we should go with 'furious.'"
"Well, Rahm, perhaps you are over-rating furiousity as an emotion; the people voted for no-drama Obama, and that's what they got."
"Mr. President, you really need to be furious. Trust me on this."
"OK. But let's not be furious too often."
Supposing that neither President Obama nor Rahm Emanuel knew about this before the fact -- and I certainly hope they did not, because that would imply a level of micromanagement that our country can ill-afford -- what does this say about the judgment of the other people involved? How many people had to sign off on this stupidity? Nobody, not one, stood up and declared this the stupidest publicity stunt in the history of the universe?
16 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Tue Apr 28, 07:00:00 AM:
Obama: Good Lord, I didn't authorize ATTACKS on New York businesses, it was A TAX on New York businesses!
The other events, according to handlers, Mr. Obama was "unaware of".
I give up....you can't make this stuff up!!!! As hard as I try it still sounds plausible!
By 
, at
Tue Apr 28, 07:57:00 AM:
New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly in favor of Barack. I'm sorry they got scared and all, but they're all so smart and sophisticated that I'm sure they knew the long term implications of voting for Barack include the highly-likely event of more terrorist attacks. I'm sure as well that they have a contingency plan to protect that densely populated area and that all the citizens are well-drilled in order to carry out the plan in calm and orderly fashion.
That is of course if bowing, soul-handshakes, negotiation, and self-flaggelation don't prevent the attacks from occuring.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 08:09:00 AM:
"but if his image is at stake he becomes "furious."
My guess is that he was furious because of the poor judgment of his director. I was downtown yesterday. I didn't see the plane (thank God) but I I felt the "aftershocks" of watching workers run from their buildings.
Most people who live outside of NYC (and perhaps DC) have little undertsanding of what terror it strikes New Yorkers to see a low flying plane or people flooding out of an office building or subway car stopped too long underground. In a sense, all of us in NY who lived through 9/11 have a slight case of PTSD. Let this be a reminder to all those who might think we've "forgotten." We will never forget, and for those of us who live in NY, we relive it on more days than most can ever imagine.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 08:37:00 AM:
Average writes:
I'm sure as well that they have a contingency plan to protect that densely populated area and that all the citizens are well-drilled in order to carry out the plan in calm and orderly fashion. Yes, but with no thanks to the Bush Adminstration who cut NY's counter terrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments by more than 40%
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 09:03:00 AM:
We have a fire department and a police department and a host of first responders that we pay for here with our local taxes. Why should I pay anything for New York's first responders. Hate Bush all you want but this is still a federal government and New York can take care of itself.
Now if you want to go after these terrorists seriously, we'll all chip in for that.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 09:14:00 AM:
In defense of us New Yorkers ... we took a big hit on 9/11 ... and we went right back to work. Bin Laden & Co thought we'd fold, but we didn't. If terror does come back, everyone in New York knows we're a prime target.
I had the honor of meeting Jim McGlynn socially a couple of years ago. He was an FDNY Lieutenant on 9/11 and one of about 15 people who crawled out of the collapsed North Tower alive. He and his crew had the luck of reaching ground level in Stairway B of the North Tower at just the right moment.
Not all Wall Street bankers are scumbags. John Duffy is CEO of a very good boutique i-Bank, Keefe Bruyette. KBW had two floors high up in the South Tower. After the North Tower was first hit, the people on one floor of KBW listened to the PA announcement to stay put -- they died. A senior exec on the other floor -- a survivor of the 1993 World Trade Center attack -- told everyone to ignore the message and get out -- they survived. Duffy was quoted in Newsweek: "I couldn't go to the funeral of my best friend, because I had to go to the funeral of my son."
Bill McGinn was an FDNY first responder at the 1993 attack. He was convinced that the terrorists would be back. With the support of his epidemiologist wife he helped make Squad 18 the first FDNY unit specially trained to handle bioterror. Ironically, he and his crew were in the North Tower on 9/11 ... about 90 seconds behind McGlynn's crew.
I know of a few other New Yorkers who had some connection to the 1993 attack who made career missions of being ready for the next terrorist attack. I only wish the federal government had been as prescient.
You have to love the New York Post. Today's headline: Scare Force One
Link, over
By Nobrainer, at
Tue Apr 28, 09:47:00 AM:
I don't see how Patterico's last post-script is that good a point.
I mean, I take from it that people may perceive risk differently from what it actually is. And that is a good point. But I don't think that's what he was going for.
And maybe here I'm confusing TigerHawk with another blogger, maybe VodkaPundit, but I thought the argument had been made here that flying planes into buildings was no longer a viable al-Qaida strategy.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 10:20:00 AM:
Now if you want to go after these terrorists seriously, we'll all chip in for that. I thought that's what's we've been doing for the last 6 years....
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 10:34:00 AM:
Anon at 9:03 am--We have a fire department and a police department and a host of first responders that we pay for here with our local taxes. Why should I pay anything for New York's first responders. Hate Bush all you want but this is still a federal government and New York can take care of itself.Don't be so quick Anon. DHS sent $$ to every state for counterterrorism funding so you're paying for first responders whether they be in New York or Cheyenne, Wyoming, which I might point our received more funding per capita under Bush's budget than New York. Or Louisville, KY which had its counter terrorism coffers increased by 70%.
Now you tell me when the bad guys come back where do you think they'll hit? The financial capital of the world or Churchill Downs? Trust me, if they hit NY again you and your grandchildren will be paying for it for a long, long time.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 10:51:00 AM:
Link again,
Bush and Cheney had a hard on for Iraq that pre-dated 9/11 ... and hijacked 9/11 as their excuse for an invasion they wanted all along. Terrorism is a threat, but our response has been misdirected and disproportionate. As a New Yorker, I don't feel any safer for all the blood and treasure we've spent in Iraq ... why should I ... Iraq had nothing to do with domestic US terror. We made a mess of Afghanistan, and bin Laden is still on the loose. Obama will be the worst president of my lifetime -- possibly ever -- but Iraq made Obama possible.
I got cynical about this soon after 9/11 when I saw anti-terrorism pork going to places like Wyoming ... and a new bureaucracy create color-coded alert levels -- which always seemed to get elevated on days Bush needed a boost. I'm even more cynical now that I know how much we were lied to by Bush-Cheney.
The real war is between DC and the rest of us. The two-headed monster in DC continues to suck money and power form the rest of us and squander it. Bush & Co squandered a fortune ... Obama & Co are about to squander trillions.
Our federal government has a monopoly on national defense ... but if you gave it the resources, I'd trust the NYPD to do a better job on anti-terrorism than all the DC agencies put together.
Our federal government has a monopoly on money ... but they're about to ruin the greenback. Hamilton is spinning in his grave.
Both parties suck ... bad as Bush & Co were ... Obama-Pelosi & Co are worse. We're getting as bad as Rome under Caligula and Nero. Yesterday's fly-by is just a comical example. This was the day after Obama said he wanted to root out inefficiency in government.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 10:57:00 AM:
It's too bad newspapers don't employ journalists and reporters anymore because someone should really dig into this one. This was the Presidential jet. What other fact do we know? Someone wanted nice photos and video of it flying around national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and in the apparently now canceled fight, Washington D.C., Lincoln Memorial I guess.
Those are highly symbolic associations. They weren't checking out the airplane. This was marketing, no doubt about it. That makes it a political stunt.
Now, who was trying to sell what to whom?
The Air Force will get the blame for this, but this idea had to have come either from the Air Force or the Executive Branch.
When you think of grandiose political stunts, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
Me too.
M.E.
By , at
Tue Apr 28, 11:40:00 AM:
Link, I couldn't agree with you more, and every day another bit of evidence leaks out about how determined--nay, desperate--Bush & Co were to connect dots that couldn't be connected.
"A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq. "While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."
By Kinuachdrach, at
Tue Apr 28, 01:35:00 PM:
Hey -- Obama has travelled the world apologizing for things that other people did. How about Obama travelling to New York City and apologizing personally and humbly for his own actions.
None of this "mistakes were made" stuff, either. An honest heart-felt apology for the mistakes that he made (or that people he appointed made, i.e. still his personal responsibility).
Any bets on how long New Yorkers have to wait for a real Obama apology?
By kentuckyliz, at
Tue Apr 28, 08:32:00 PM:
Scaring people like that will turn the poll results against Obama's desire to pursue and prosecute people for giving legal advice about interrogation techniques.
People will remember why they were so supportive of said techniques in 2002.
Perhaps this should serve as a smack upside Pelosi's head to aid her memory.
By JPMcT, at
Tue Apr 28, 08:49:00 PM:
"every day another bit of evidence leaks out about how determined--nay, desperate--Bush & Co were to connect dots that couldn't be connected"
Yawn...this is like shooting fish in a barrel...but I can't resist.
The McClatchy newspaper site that is the basis of your like stated ONE MONTH AGO that there is no Al Queda in Iraq.
I'm not making this up!
Of course the connection between Hussein and Bin Laden was first found by the Clinton administration years before Bush "stole" the election. But let's not let history distort our need for a good rant.
I also love the masssive media references to the 200 report about Maj Charles Burney. It would seem that Maj. Burney has dropped off the face of the earth since his testimony. I get more Google hits than he does!
In any event, if you actually bother to read the report, it is clear that Maj. Burney was annoyed that he as even at GTMO, angry that he was "hijacked" to be part of the interrogations team and opposed to "torture" before he even had any clinical exposure to any interrogations.
The "torture" referred to is as follows:
* Sitting on a hard chair
* the use of earmuffs and goggles
* pouring an 8 oz glass of water on the prisoner's head
* having a dog in the room
* the use of "dark" and "spiders"
* making the prisoner stand up
It sort of pales in comparison to cutting off a man's head on live TV for his family to watch....doesn't it?!
Face it, Anon 11:40...you guys can concoct all this silly crap and publish it for all the uninformed idiots in the world to read...but in my world view...you and your ilk are wimps and you are ultimately going to regret dismantling our national security.
When they come for you...do you think it's going to be to make you sit in a hard chair??
By Gary Rosen, at
Wed Apr 29, 02:13:00 AM:
"How about Obama travelling to New York City and apologizing personally and humbly for his own actions."
BO's got a sign on his desk saying,
"The buck passes here".
