Saturday, May 09, 2009
FlybyGate claims its first victim
The White House has thrown its DoD liason under the bus (blog round-up here) for the now infamous Air Force One photo-op flyby over lower Manhattan. Richard Fernandez has taken his usual hard look at the various pronouncements and supporting documents and cannot make it all quite add up. Read the comments, too.
Assume, for a moment, that the problem is mere managerial incompetence. As defensible as that might be in the first few months of an administration -- it takes everybody a while to learn their new jobs, after all -- where is the press in making this point? After all, we know from the Bush years that the media identify incompetence with greater sensitivity than specificity. It would shatter all my illusions if it turned out that the media were letting this one drop because it did not fit the narrative.
Meanwhile, Gerard Vanderleun is very concerned about the government's Photoshop skills. He makes a good point. How are we going to win the war of ideas without good Photoshop skills?
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat May 09, 11:09:00 AM:
Hadn't seen the “Tuskegee Airman” movie cite before. Could the 747 been carrying the Tuskegee Airman and their families and, maybe, other prominent Washington African-Americans?
By 
Gary Rosen, at
Sat May 09, 12:12:00 PM:
What frosts me about this incident as much as the fact that it happened at all is BO's knee-jerk reaction to cast about for some underling to blame. Apparently he has a sign on his desk that says, "The buck passes here".
By JPMcT, at
Sat May 09, 12:40:00 PM:
Hmmm...it takes the Obama administration three days to deal with teenage muslim terrorists (...err...sorry, that would be "pirates")in a skiff harassing American shipping.
They are clearly unable to effectively manage a flyover with their own aircraft in a friendly American city.
They close an international prison without any plans to manage the inmates.
Their war plan in Afganistan is to anger the Pakistanis and continue the same campaign planning that they campaigned AGAINST.
Geez...no wonder these guys are anti-war...they couldn't do it if they tried!
By Kinuachdrach, at
Sat May 09, 04:14:00 PM:
The Obama excuse note says there are something like 2,300 people in the units which support Air Force 1 and other Executive Branch planes.
Someone knows something. How much food & drink was loaded onto the plane for the 'photo-op'? Did the toilet system need flushing after the flight? How many photos were taken during the 'photo op'? Then there is the FAA and the Secret Service.
This is time for Congress to exercise oversight. This one flight of Obama's Excellent Airplane cost more tax dollars than most citizens will pay in a lifetime. Who ordered the flight? Who was on the plane? Congress can find out.
And, no! The idea that this was a screw-up by a self-medicating low-level flunky just does not pass the smell test.
By JPMcT, at
Sat May 09, 11:06:00 PM:
We now have a single pic released by the Big Zero of the plane over the Statue of Liberty.
Quite a feat for a party that doesn't like the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom...or, for that matter, a man who would not place his hand on his heart for that pledge.
He will, however, release another barrage of pictures from Abu Gurab to portray what are essentially college hazing stunts as torture to send the media into further twitters.
That's lot's of trouble to keep a man from being embarassed by a single picture. A man who doesn't care if other pictures embarass his country.
How the HELL can people with a functional IQ support this fool???
By , at
Sat May 09, 11:52:00 PM:
"How the Hell can people with a functional IQ support this fool???"
"95% of Americans will receive a tax cut. Only 5% will see a miniscule increase in their taxes."
Free health care for all. No more torture of Geneva Convention combatants!!! All who voted for me will be paid cash from the 5% capitalists!!! Union contributors will be paid retirement benefits from the general public courtesy of loans from and to be reimbursed by our grandchildren.
Obama/Biden 08
By JPMcT, at
Sun May 10, 10:10:00 AM:
Well, Anon, at least Obama is a man of his word.
It will be a nice party for the Morloks until the money (credit, tax base) runs out.
By , at
Sun May 10, 12:35:00 PM:
I read the Tuskegee Airmen post at ThisAintHell blog, but without photographs it would be impossible to prove that at least one of the F-16s sported a red tail. It could be that is why they won't release the photographs.
A photo op to honor American Airmen who served honorably in war would be a good thing. A cover-up when the publicity stunt goes wrong is not. Unfortunately, the government controls the evidence so this exists right now as just a conspiracy theory. Are there photographs of red tail F-16s in the air over New York on that day that the government can't suppress? We will find out eventually.
