Fly-By Folly
No doubt you've heard about the White House's ill-advised and unannounced (to the public) flyby of the Statue of Liberty and other New York landmarks. The stunt seems almost unbelievably dumb: how could anyone not have foreseen that the sight of a low-flying 747, apparently being pursued by one or two military aircraft and just missing New York landmarks, would fail to create a panic? It's lucky, really, that no one died in a stampede.
This is the most revealing video I've seen of the impact the fly-by had on New Yorkers:
Mostly this is just one of those SNAFUs that organizations inevitably produce from time to time. But it also is a timely reminder of why it was, in 2002 and 2003, that being nice to terrorists was not at the top of most Americans' agendas.
UPDATE: Confederate Yankee has a scoop:
Confidential sources close to the White House have confirmed that President Obama was indeed on Air Force One today as it attempted to land in New York, but the flight was turned away three times by ground fire originating from Bank of America shareholders.
