What the?
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009Suddenly, without regard for those that might be affected, our government did a gigantic flyby over lower Manhattan yesterday, including an escort of several fighter jets, all for a gigantic photo op. At what cost?
Obama has claimed outrage and will investigate. Perhaps true, but that ignores the fact that he knew this would happen, OR that he DIDN’T know it would happen. Whether Obama knew or didn’t know about this photo op, he is responsible. This is where the buck stops in terms of executive operations of our government. At the President. This comment is about just one incident, but the general principle applies to all preceding Presidents of our great country as well.
Obama, perhaps, REALLY didn’t know about the flyby. I don’t see that as an excuse.
Was this event below the level of importance to inform the President or the Mayor of NYC? The people of Manhattan have endured enough, as have we all. The Mayor of NYC, Micheal Bloomberg, was not amused to say the least. Many Americans were not amused as well.
Perhaps Obama was unaware, but, given the sensitivity of people in NYC and all Americans in general, this is an example of government not doing the job of protecting all Americans from force or fraud and, instead, pursuing its own interests.
Update as of May 11, 2009: Obama has accepted the resignation of the official that authorized the Manhattan fly-by which implies Obama didn’t or probably didn’t know about the fly-by ahead of time. If that’s the case we have government officials taking liberties beyond their authority or Obama delegating too much or too much to the wrong people. This incident just raises my distrust of government bureaucracy at any level.