Brief Panic in New York This Morning … For a Photo Op
File this one in the facepalm drawer. This morning, a Department of Defense scheduled flyover of a Boeing 747, the same type of plane used to fly the President, caused a brief time a panic among New Yorkers:
Two officials told CNN the White House Military Office was trying to update its file photos of Air Force One. The officials said the president was angry when he learned Monday afternoon about the flight, which sparked fear in the New York-New Jersey area.
“The president was furious about it,” one of the officials said. The incident outraged many New Yorkers, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“First thing is, I’m annoyed — furious is a better word — that I wasn’t told,” he said, calling the aviation administration’s decision to withhold details about the flight “ridiculous” and “poor judgment.”
“Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center defies the imagination,” he said. “Had we known, I would have asked them not to.”
The approval for the flyover came from the White House, but apparently not from the President himself:
“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” said Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office. “While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption.”
Could you be any more stupid? It’s completely uncalled for to have not notified the public. In any case, there are numerous other national landmarks to have chosen, including many not over a populated area. Why not choose one of them?
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
you can’t fault the guy too much, in this staff – i’m sure he was busy doing his taxes or something.
File this under ‘What the hell were they thinking?”
Great PR move, this. I can’t even figure out what that means anyway- what was the point of the photo op, and aside from the massive insensitivity of the way this was done, who was paying for this and why? I thought the same thing that Jon Stewart apparently said- these people have never heard of photoshop?