Color me shocked.

But apparently quite easy to turn Mr. Caldera into “The White House.” Let’s watch and see what develops.

That should be VC-25’s. VC-137’s are the old (i.e. 707) transports.

Regardless of where the request originated (or what the purpose was), it was the White House that signed off on it. And it’s hard to argue with the fact that the White House exercised extremely poor judgment in approving the low flyby of a large commercial* aircraft over Manhattan. And that the FAA used equally bad judgment in requiring the whole thing to be kept secret from the public.

Note to White House staff: Even though a whole 8 years have passed since 9/11, there are a whole lot of New Yorkers who apparently still haven’t gotten over that whole aircraft-into-a-building thing.

* I know the VC-137’s are technically military aircraft, but they are based on the instantly recognizable 747 commercial jet.

In other stories, it was characterized as a “department of defense” photo-op. Notice also the word “apparently” in this story.

I’m sticking with my interpretation until we know who requested the photo op.

You can stop now.

The flyover — apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs so it would have souvenir photos of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background — had President Obama seeing red. He ordered a probe and apologized.

“It was a mistake. It will never happen again,” President Obama said

So if Mr. Caldera “approved” it, is it likely that he also “initiated” the request for the flight? If he didn’t, then who did? Why was his approval necessary? What, exactly, did he approve? The use of the aircraft? The flight path?

Stop me when you have the answer to any question other than “Can we try to blame this on Obama?”

Curious – Oliver, do you have any evidence at all (such as a blog post) showing how “disturbed” you were about networks thinking of skipping Bush’s events? Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you are full of it. “My outrage runs in both directions!” claims from someone as reliably partisan as you just aren’t very credible.

I do. Can you comprehend that “White House Military Office Director” is not in fact part of the Air Force, negating your “Air Force operation, start to finish” statement?

I apologize and take responsibility

Clearly not a Republican.

Dave, do you know what the word “approved” means?

Wrong. The order came from the White House.

President Obama’s White House was forced to issue an apology Monday after a photo opportunity gone badly wrong — an Air Force 747 plane did a low flyover over Lower Manhattan, prompting terrified citizens to flee from their offices and high-profile accusations of government insensitivity in the post 9/11 era.

White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera issued a brief statement saying he was too blame.

“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” he said. “While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, its clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”

Perhaps we can securitize it and sell it off in tranches.

GE’s CNBC is nearly 24/7 right wing quackery. GE’s MSNBC had three hours of a Republican politician spouting fictions for years before they ‘balanced’ that with two hours of lefties telling truths (Maddow & Schultz, unless you include the centrist Olbermann*).

Before that MSNBC FIRED the popular and profitable lefty Phil Donahue. And on NBC, Meet the Press replaced Republican Cheney’s mouthpiece Tim Russert with right winger Karl Rove’s dance partner David Gregory.

Disney/ABC pushed the right wing 9/11 movie right before the election for political purposes. ABC’s This Week’s host Stephanopoulos still brings on right wing global climate change denier George Will despite his complete lack of credibility.

Viacom/CBS’s Face the Nation’s host Bob Schieffer has degenerated into such a right wing sycophant that it’s astonishing how few have called him out on it. And Katie Couric’s fluffer piece with Rush Limbaugh almost immediately after she got the Evening News anchor job was obscene.

Even PBS/NewsHour has a Republican insurance salesman as a host (Gwen Ifill) and often has two Republicans on to debate ‘both sides’ of issues.

If FACTS are liberal, then sure, occasionally each of those TV channels indulge in pushing facts. FACTS apparently offend delicate right wing sensibilities. To right wingers, when the news media reports facts, the right wing screams ‘liberal media’.

Nonetheless, media studies repeatedly show that the TV networks tilt to the right, the most recent example was the study that showed that the TV networks were bringing on two Republicans to every one Democratic leader during the stimulus debates.

And of course the FOX Republican Channel has no balance or sense of fairness and is currently indulging in the right wing lunatic fantasies of sociopaths.

That’s the major TV stations. How about radio? Nine channels out of ten are controlled by right wingers.

Print? Major periodicals like Time and Newsweek are both conservative centrist publications. Though they aren’t as extreme right wing as Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, Moonie’s Wasington Times, or Zell’s Chicago Tribune and now the LATimes.

The New York Times? It was pushing Republican Cheney’s false intelligence through his puppet journalists. The NYT was even publishing Murdoch’s right wing extremist Bill Kristol for heaven’s sake.

* Olbermann does NOT push lefty policies, he could even be called a conservative law enforcement guy, it was Republican lawlessness that kept enraging him, though for the right wing lawlessness that currently grips the right wing, ‘law and order’ is now clearly a left wing trait.

Indeed. Sign me up for that income stream.

What? Didn’t you know that the only fact there is is that Obama can do nothing right and is personally responsible for all that goes wrong?

Where have you been living? The real world?

Oh dear god. I am seriously going to have to find a way to charge a nickel for every time someone tells me they know what I’m thinking better than I do, or misrepresents what I said so they can make their own (supposed) point.

What I actually said was: Regularly scheduled (monthly?) addresses …

So I was obviously thinking of something more frequent (but am not at all surprised you missed the obvious or failed to read it correctly).

Still can’t be bothered with facts, Mr. Tea?

It was an Air Force operation, start to finish.

Yes and there are people who say:

“The moon landings were faked. That is a fact.”"