Air Force One, Flaps Up!

I was amused when the White House announced that it was going to look into the whole flap surrounding the buzzing of The Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan by Air Force One a few days ago.

The White House announced that it was unaware of the plan to scare the pants off of half of one of America’s busiest cities and had “just found out about it.” Really, is someone out joyriding in the president’s plane around New York without permission? What if there had been a national emergency and he had to rush out to Edwards AFB.

“Hey, where is my ride?”

“We’re not sure, Mr. President” but we are looking into it and should have a reasonable idea within three weeks.”

They also failed to tell the Mayor and other city and state safety departments about their antics. I wonder if they clued in the FAA. Air traffic control may have been having a bit of a heart attack too. Two unidentified fighter jets and a 747 dropping down to 1000 feet isn’t something they see every day. Maybe Maverick and Goose hijacked the plane and buzzed the tower without permission.

The White House said it was going to have a thorough investigation into how this happened and should have some results in two weeks. Though it may not seem so, this is really good news for the Bush Administration officials caught up in the “torture” witch hunt. If it is going to take the Obama Administration two weeks to find out who gave the thumbs up to barnstorming Wall Street I’m guessing the torture investigations will wrap up sometime around 2023.

I think I could get to the bottom of this in about two hours. I would call the pilot who flew the plane and say something like, “Who told you to go fly around the Statue of Liberty?” He would give me a name and I would work my way up the chain of command until I found the Rhodes Scholar who dreamed up this plan.

Here is the kicker. The Obama team prides itself in how they are so, twittered up, tech savvy and Internet geeky but apparently none of these folks have ever heard of a little think called Adobe Photoshop! Forget flying around New Your Harbor. I could have shown The President’s jet sitting in the middle of the Rose Bowl, buzzing Kim Jong Il’s palace or pulling the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders water-skiing across Crater Lake!

If you’re going to go for a photo op why not just put the President in the pilot’s seat doing his own flying. Maybe we could also Photoshop him flying the bird to the middle class taxpaying public when they are trying to send him a message. Wait, he’s already done that!