Two numbskulls, one from New York and another from D.C., were behind the air-brained photo-op that needlessly panicked thousands of New York and Jersey residents yesterday morning.
An obscure City Hall deputy took the blame on the New York end. Marc Mugnos, a $60,000-a-year director of operations for Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of Citywide Event Coordination and Management, failed to tell the big boss that a jumbo jet and an F-16 were going to buzz the air above Ground Zero, the Daily News reported.
Mugnos was reprimanded and unavailable for comment.
The D.C. dunce who hatched the plan is Louis Caldera, the director of the White House Military Office. He apologized, sort of, but never explained why the Obama administration needed these photos of an Air Force One backup plane so badly that they’d be willing to cause 9/11 flashbacks for thousands of unwitting residents and workers.
“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” said Caldera. “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. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”
A point of clarification: the mission did not create confusion and disruption. Caldera’s decision to inform local authorities but instruct them to not inform the public created the confusion.
If there’s a silver lining to all this idocy, it’s that the fine people of Washington, D.C., have been put on notice that a similar photo-op is planned for their skies next week.
Sources told the News that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel tracked down Caldera to “relay the president’s displeasure.”
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama ordered an internal review to determine how the decision was made to send of one of his official airplanes on a low-flying photo op past the New York City skyline.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that deputy chief of staff Jim Messina will lead the review. Gibbs said the point is to determine “why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again.”
Gibbs said Obama was “furious” when he heard about the incident. Obama has called it a mistake.
(Source: AP / CBS2 HD / NBC NY)
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15 Responses
Aside from from petrifying so many people, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did this stupid stunt cost our financially (and morally) bankrupt government?!? (It costs a fortune to put a 747 and a fighter jet in the air!)
Come on Aynodmilvado1 wake up. You know there ALWAYS money readily available for the stupidity that government wants. There is no money for you and I, but for that………there’s money. The better question is, Why are these celebrity photo shots of Air Force 1 even needed.
Aw come one Mr. President, who do you think you are jive talking now; a bunch of peasants?
I am wondering what else has he failed to tell his superiors that we don’t know about? and what exactly is his job besides massaging service (which he is so bad at) that entitles him for a weekly celery of $1200 of our tax dollars.
What the reporters omitted: “The Narcissist in Chief denies any prior knowledge of the photo op, but confirms that his Aunt Zeituni Onyango requested one picture of Air Force 1 suitable for framing and two wallet size copies.”
lets face it today you can play with the computer and place any image wherever you want including NYC without being there.So what is the REAL reason for this flight???
PhotoOp? So let’s see the pics. Problem is there was no photographer. This is a bogus story, and there’s something they’re hiding.
i guess my comments are just too good to be posted.
OBAMA was a mistake…..not this photo-op!
Everybody chill. This was just an innocent mistake made by an overly cautious secret service agent, nothing to do with Obama.
#6 & #7, so what do you think the real reason was?
They were spying on New York and trying to scare the people there on purpose.
This had to be a drill to see how fast a skyscraper could be evacuated. From what I heard, I think it worked pretty well.
this is all prob a ‘secret” mission to fly sum new surgical masks to mexico- or maybe theyre inspecting the air for swine flu. who cares? and # 12 what do u mean
also electing him was a mistake
Buzzing NYC for a photo-op was an unconscionable thing to do. The director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, should be made to resign, then he should be made to come to the crater that was the WTC and work there for an unlimited amount of time to fathom just what [we] go through every day.
The wounds we New Yorkers have are still open and very sore, this incident just makes them worse.
May Ha Kodesh Baruch Hu deal justly our enemies…