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It sounds like the Obama White House was hoping to burnish its Permanent Campaign’s stock footage reel with some B-roll of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan, without realizing that workers in Jersey City and lower Manhattan “are highly attuned to unusual air traffic in the area”, as Allahpundit writes at Hot Air:
Not a day has passed in seven-plus years, I think, that an airplane has flown low enough overhead that I could hear it, even just barely, and I didn’t look up. Just watching the video, I could feel the blood drain from my face.
Good work, Pentagon.
It will be amusing to watch the legacy media downplay this incident to the exact degree that they would have gone into Three Alarm High Dudgeon Mode had this occurred on President Bush’s watch.
Update: Jim Geraghty, who appeared on PJM Political over the weekend, notes that today’s incident was “Depressingly Standard For Government Work”:
Even if I weren’t a conservative, today’s NYC low-flying plane fiasco would remind me of all of government’s flaws – something unnecessary (a photo op) executed incompetently (no one informed the public) with an unbelievably blind eye to obvious issues (potential panic from a low-flying jetliner, trailed by an F-16, flying over lower Manhattan). Now all I need to hear is that the exercise went over budget.
I wonder if CNN’s weatherman will complain on air about the amount of JP-8 it consumed.
Update: Found in the comments to Allah’s post: “Obama to NY: Feel the power of this full functional, incompetent Debt Star.” Meanwhile, Johanna Neuman of the L.A. Times compares the incident to Orson Welles’ infamous War of the Worlds radio stunt, which was set in the New York-New Jersey area, and ended up briefly terrifying its residents:
So, like a scene from Orson Welles’ version of “War of the Worlds,” thousands of residents and office workers in downtown Manhattan and New Jersey fled their high-rises in such panic that at least two people were treated for minor injuries in the rush to leave buildings.
Scarred by memories of terrorists hijacking plans and slamming into skyscrapers, the residents of Lower Manhattan did what any sane person who lived through 9/11 would do — they assumed the worst.
“Everybody panicked,” said Daisy Cooper, a Merrill Lynch worker in Jersey City who lost a nephew on 9/11. “Everybody was screaming, and we all ran downstairs. I’m devastated.” In an interview with NBC, she added, “Everybody was running; we didn’t know why we were running. We just knew it was a plane; there we go, 9/11 again.”
By day’s end, the Obama White House had put out an apology from Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, which left more questions than it answered.
On Twitter, Jon of the Exurban League ponders, “After reading about Obama’s AF1 Photo Op, I had a scary thought: What if Biden’s the smart one?”
Even by the standards of Welles and Wells, that’s too scary to even contemplate.
Related: “They all voted for this guy, but did they deserve this?” Heh, indeed.™
(Bumped to top.)
Update: In the comment section below, Larry Sheldon writes, “Am I the only one considers a terrorist to be a person or group of people who do something that is terrifying?” Well, I think there has to be some deliberate attempt at violence or destruction, but as puts it, “Obama Tortures 9/11 Victims.” Check out the side by side photos of today’s flyby of lower Manhattan with one into that same area eight and a half years ago.
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