Here it is, the photo everyone is having a conniption over

White House aide resigns over NYC flyover

NBC News and news services
updated 12:16 p.m. ET, Sat., May 9, 2009
WASHINGTON - A top White House aide resigned Friday for his role in Air Force One's $328,835 photo-op flyover above New York City that sparked panic and flashbacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Louis Caldera said the controversy had made it impossible for him to effectively lead the White House Military Office. "Moreover, it has become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president," Caldera said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama.

The sight of the huge passenger jet and an F-16 fighter plane flying past the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan financial district sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets on April 27. Obama said it would not happen again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30643376/?GT1=43001

:rofl:

Which makes it even more :rofl: worthy..

There's nothing easier to photoshop into a scene than an airplane. Hell, there are detailed 3-d models of Air Force 1 already available for a nominal fee, and they'd be indistinguishable from the real thing if rendered properly. I could've provided one for 1/5 the cost of the fuel alone.

Whoever made that decision was an idiot on several levels. Good riddance.

--I'm guessing there was a desire for a unit photo for all of the AF1 crowd, to include the support crew.

--I'm guessing they had a lotta fuel left in the quarterly accounts that they wanted to burn up, and of course, they CAN have as much as they want, given who their customer is, but it's "custom and tradition" to use it all up every quarter.

--Perhaps there were a few pilots and crew who needed a few more hours on their yellow sheets for pay qualification maintenance purposes, or simply because they like acquiring the hours.

--Maybe a few new pilots had reported to the unit, and they wanted to give them the opportunity to fart around with the plane without having "himself" or the missus onboard.

what's funny (and sad) is the rightwing media noise machine would have had just as big of a conniption fit if it were.

back in the bush days.

Actually, some here would have thrown a fit in the Obama days too....

and for a lot less money!

And really? We need pictures to "sell" this to the public? PR gone mad, I think.

Makes perfect sense now.

Miss California, on her speaking tour

Yes this bureaucrat screwed up. Yes, his resignation was probably warranted. I am aware of the memories of 9/11 that this summons to many people. But think about it, would the reaction have been the same from the all mighty MSM if this had been in a city in the middle of the country?

New Yorkers think they live in the center of the universe.

They don't.

It had more to do with an unannounced low-flying jet buzzing a city hit by two low-flying jets in 2001.

The Albuquerque comparison would be apt had a 9/11-like event occurred there.

America's economic power was symbolized by the twin towers. That's the difference.

Comparing a fly-by in Albuquerque to one in Manhattan makes zero sense.

not from the area to understand the depth of the feelings from that day. And especially the fear. New Yorkers are not a naturally fearsome lot; you can't be timid to succeed there! (Try driving in that city!) But after living through something like 9/11, those people never, ever should have been made to experience that all again - for a photo op.

What if there had been an unannounced building implosion in Oklahoma City a few years after that attack? Do you think there might have been a bit of an uproar about that? And I don't know that anyone from Oklahoma City has been accused of thinking they live in the center of the universe.

(Besides, in a lot of ways, NYC IS the center of the known universe!) ;)

747 jumbo jet being visibly tailed by a military fighter plane (not shown in this particular photo) and all of this happening right in the exact neighborhood where the Twin Towers used to be. And excuse me, if New Yorkers are still a little jumpy at unexplained, unannounced, unpublicized sights like these. It has nothing to do with your offensive canard about "New Yorkers thinking they live in the center of the universe" (nice blanket condemnation and painting with a very broad brush). It has everything to do with New York was attacked. Albuquerque wasn't.

a crap or something, with that brown island beneath it.

(not discounting the other issues mentioned re: 9/11 and such).

In this computer age they could have made that photo for free using gimp or photoshop or some other program.

It's through the roof, and that's even with increased use of simulators....

My server saw it and said "Wow, cool picture!" So I told him the story, which he had heard nothing about.

.

The photographer needs to be fired, too. I could do better.

Probably just the normal smog, but they could have waited for more ideal conditions.

and photo-shopped the New York skyline in without AF1 ever needing to leave the ground.

or whatever. What a waste of money.

The composition is very static. The Statue of Liberty should be more to the right, the plane very slightly to the left. And, if it had been Photoshopped instead of wasting $328,835, they could have avoided the muddy colors, the window glare and the shadow of the plane's window frame in the lower right corner.

The idea is cool enough. But every single thing about the execution of the idea is bad bad bad.

.

Waste of Money!

Airforce 1 on a joy ride to Manhattan, They're grounded.