The Air Farce One Report -- A Classic Case Of Misdirection

The Obama File ^ | 5/9/09 | Beckwith

[Beckwith]

A White House military aide who authorized an Air Force flyover of New York that caused panic among some people in the city resigned on Friday.

Louis Caldera said in a resignation letter to Obama that the controversy over the mission -- a photo shoot of a jumbo jet used as Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background -- made it impossible for him to lead the White House Military Office (WHMO).

White House officials said the flight was designed to update the official photo of the plane, known as Air Force One when the president is aboard.

The flight over lower Manhattan for a photo shoot scared some New Yorkers who remembered the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 involving hijacked airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center.  Many people panicked and evacuated office buildings when the planes flew over -- as low as 150 feet.

Caldera had approved the mission.  His resignation came on the same day Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a letter to Senator John McCain that the photo shoot cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $357,000.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs (Gibbels) said Obama had accepted the resignation.  Obama had been described as furious when the incident occurred on April 27 and demanded a review.

Isn't that tidy -- Louis Caldera is responsible -- but responsible for what?

Louis Caldera is responsible for "approving" the flight.  No need to look any further.  Caldera is responsible -- off with his head -- move on!

However, none of this answers the key question -- WHO REQUESTED THE FLIGHT?

Start with Caldera's boss.  Who does Caldera work for -- and who does that guy work for -- and who does that guy work for.  Somewhere up that food chain is the genius whose brainstorm is responsible for this clusterflop -- that person is the "Requestor" or "Initiator" -- that's the guy that is really responsible.

When the flight was a "Go," the WHMO Deputy Director sent an email to the Director, saying the flight would receive some "local press," but the White House shouldn't catch any questions about it.  The email also suggested notifying Jim Messina and Robert Gibbels.

The flight then flew into history.

The White House (read Rhambo) investigated the flight and The White House Counsel's Office (Gregory Craig) produced a report, "Internal Review Concerning April 27, 2009 Air Force One Flight."  (It's interesting this report uses the "Air Force One" designation, as the aircraft is only referred to in this way when POTUS is on board.  Is Craig suggesting that Obama was on the flight?)

The report (I could access only the first 3 pages of the .pdf file for some reason) says that the Deputy Director of the WHMO "suggested that when the plan was finalized, the Director MAY want to inform White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Messina (not the singer). The Deputy Director believed that Mr. Messina would want notice because the plan involved the use of the Presidential aircraft and because it was unusual."

I'll say!

Note, the focus of this report is on the WHMO, the initial flight planning and the subsequent processes and reviews that resulted in the flight.  Nowhere in the "official" report is there any mention of the person or persons who initiated the request for the flight mission that was ultimately "approved" by Caldera.

And, it doesn't answer the secondary question -- WHO WAS ON BOARD?  Any honest investigation would provide the flight and passenger manifests.  Neither of these are addressed in the report (whitewash).

A Reuters news article said the report of the review, mentioned above, said ultimately Caldera did not notify relevant White House officials about the flyover in advance.

"When asked why he failed to do so, he did not offer a coherent explanation.  He stated that it was not a conscious decision -- he did not intend not to notify them," it said. "Instead, he suggested that it may have been an oversight."

An oversight?  I just find that statement to be unbelievable.

Caldera had previously apologized for the April 27 incident, saying, "Last week, I approved a mission over New York.  I take responsibility for that decision (approving the flight).  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."

And like a good little Obot, Caldera fell on his sword.

The White House Military Office (2,300 managers and staff) knew about the flight, and so did the Department of Defense, and Andrews Air Force Base, and the Air Mobility Command, and the Presidential Airlift Group, and the 89th Airlift Wing, and the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic control representatives in the New York are, and "federal, state and local authorities."

It seems everyone in the government knew about the "secret flight" except Obama and his senior White House advisers.  Sgt. Schultz ("I know nothing") would be proud.

Of course Obama was furious when the incident occurred.  It hit the fan the day before his 100th day's celebration and victory speech, dramatically affecting the news.

But he knew nothing about it -- nor did any other "responsible" person in and around the White House -- just Caldera, even though the report contains several mentions of Jim Messina, whose boss is Rhambo -- and Rhambo's boss is Obama -- that's two degrees of separation.

[bboop]

Thanks. You misunderstood, tho. There would be a Blue Moon before Congress would choose/ allow Rove to do it, but it would surely be great if he did.

[Squantos]

Aaaaahhhhhhhh HA !.......:o)

BHO is soooooo screwed on this one !!

LMAO !!

Sending to Glen Beck !

[visualops]

I have not seen that in any of the photos of Obama in the Oval Office. In fact his desk is about bare in most photos.

[maggief]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/inauguration/1364163,w-barack-obama-inauguration-halle-berry010609.article

More than 2,000 donors are helping to finance Obama’s Jan. 20 swearing-in festivities. At least 378 gave the maximum $50,000.

Top donors include financier and major Democratic donor George Soros, actors Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson, Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, directors Ron Howard, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and actor, singer and director Barbra Streisand.

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/News%20&%20Features/capitalcomment/10927.html

What: Bytes & Books Inaugural Ball.

Where: Folger Shakespeare Library.

When: Tuesday, January 20, 6:30 PM.

Who: Bytes & Books brought out 450 teachers and tech geeks, spruced up for the occasion in dapper tuxedos and glitzy floor-length gowns. The most noteworthy person in the over-40 crowd was movie director George Lucas, there to accept an award for his work on education technology.

[cookcounty]

"Is Craig suggesting that Obama was on the flight?"

What does Obama's calendar for that day show?

[Travis McGee]

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=870841

Arfcom’s take yesterday on the Red Tail connection.

[Squantos]

I just sent whole set of links to Glenn Beck......

me@glennbeck.com

Automated response.....

Thanks so much for the email. Due to the volume of mail this may be the only response you see. While I do not always see it in a timely fashion I do try to read all of my mail. However, I average over 2000 letters a day and there is no way I can respond to most letters. I am glad you are watching/listening and even though you may not see a response, I want you to know that I am listening as well. Thanks, Glenn Beck

[maggief]

George Lucas, Mellody Hobson, First Lady Michelle Obama, Sidney Poitier, President Barack Obama, Paul Tetreault at the gala re-opening of Ford’s Theatre that happened last Wednesday night, on Lincoln’s 200th birthday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellody_Hobson

Mellody Hobson (born April 3, 1969) is the president of Ariel Investments, LLC, a Chicago investment firm managing over $3 billion in assets. She is also the Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of Ariel Mutual Funds. Hobson is a regular contributor on financial issues to ABC's Good Morning America and a spokesperson for the annual Ariel/Schwab Black Investor Survey.

Hobson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1991 from the Woodrow Wilson School of International Relations and Public Policy at Princeton University. She joined Ariel soon afterward as an intern and rose up to become the firm’s senior vice president and director of marketing. She ascended to become the firm’s president in 2000.

Hobson serves on the board of many organizations, including the Chicago Public Library, the Field Museum, the Chicago Public Education Fund, and the Sundance Institute. She is also a director of the Starbucks Corporation, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. and Dreamworks Animation SKG, Inc. Hobson has been acclaimed in selections such as Ebony magazine's “20 Leaders of the Future” (1992), Working Women Magazine's “20 Under 30” (1992), the World Economic Forum's “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” (2001), Esquire's “America's Best and Brightest” (2002), The Wall Street Journal's 50 “Women to Watch” (2004)[1] and Time's Global Business Influentials (2004).[2]

Hobson is unmarried and has no children. She is dating film director and producer George Lucas and accompanied him to the Academy Awards ceremony in February 2007, an American Film Institute event in October 2007, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network awards in February 2008, and the “We Are One” Presidential Pre-Inaugural Concert on January 18, 2009.[3][4]

[maggief]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/obamas_first_transition_meetin.html

According to the Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama launched his presidential transition with a series of meetings at Ariel Investments.

“Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled in the offices of Ariel Investments, a Chicago-based mutual fund company headed by friend John W. Rogers Jr.”

Ariel Investments is a Chicago-based investment management firm that has a “Below Average” performance rating according to Morningstar. As an African-American-owned firm, it has benefitted from city and state government and union pension funds who are under a mandate (whether official or not) to boost investments with minority-owned firms. Of course, the pensioners dependent on the performance on these investments have not shared the benefits.

[_Jim]

Some of the speculation about the "Venus 1 Heavy" call sign appears to be cleared up at this site:

http://taylor.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/a-380000-pound-4engine-airliner-will-be-zipping-around-the-statue-of-liberty-at-1500-feet-but-you-ha.html

From that website:

One note about callsigns. I think it's safe to say that this definitely wasn't some kind of super-secret passenger-carrying flight, where the truth is being obscured so as to prevent a politician from being embarassed.

When the VC-25 is carrying the President, its callsign—as we all know—is Air Force One. When they are carrying VIPs (Cabinet officers, senators and the like) their callsigns are SAM [for Special Air Mission] 28000 and SAM 29000, depending on the tail code of the aircraft being flown.

When they are carrying relatives of VIPs, the callsign will be Executive [tail code]. And finally, when they are just doing the day-to-day proficiency and currency flights, the front-office callsign will be Venus 1 (for aircraft 28000) and Venus 2 (for aircraft 29000).

Venus, incidentally, is the "house" callsign for 89th Airlift Wing.

Plenty of other aircraft types also use that callsign: the C-20s use Venus 2x, the C-37As use Venus 4x, the (now retired) C-9A used Venus 8x, and the C-32As use Venus 9x.

Finally, because the VC-25's gross take-off weight is over 255,000 lbs, they will have the "Heavy" suffix appended to the callsigns. And because the front office that day was using "Venus 1" (as opposed to "SAM 28000"), we can assume there were no VIPs or relatives of VIPs aboard.

The 'mystery' on this aspect can be easily 'put to bed' now.

[_Jim]

The "Venus 1" call sign of AF(x) was probably from "Venus One" communications which was apparently linked to the script of the movie,

Not exactly, see my post above.

[Electric Graffiti]

The maneuvers the plane made were not the kind that ‘passengers’ would be comfortable with. It was a ‘photo op’. Just not the kind obama wants you to believe. The LE in NY were told not to inform the public. WHY? Because crowd reaction is much better, if the crowd thinks it is real.

I thought that Michelle and a bunch of donors were taking a VIP buzz tour of downtown NYC on the day this story broke. This is bad enough but if this was intentional to get a crowd response Ogabe's ass should be impeached. I have my doubts. Where's the report of camera crews either in the air or on the ground? Somebody would have noticed them....

[maggief]

Connect the dots ...

George Lucas ... GF Mellody Hobson ... Ariel Investments ... John Rodgers ... Obama ...(Rezko???)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2149884/posts

John Rogers may play into the ongoing investigation of Gov. Blagoyevich and President-elect Obama’s ties to convicted political fixer Tony Rezko.

Rogers founded a minority investment business, Ariel Capital. Federal prosecutors looking into the various pay-to-play schemes in the Blagoyevich administration may be looking at the role campaign contributions played in the investment portfolio Ariel was awarded by the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.

Obama, as a state senator, lobbied the pension board overseeing investments to award more contracts to black-owned businesses and, specifically, Ariel.

In turn, Rogers contributions (amount to) tens of thousands of dollars to Obama and Blagoyevich.

Investments with Ariel were later dropped after the federal investigation of pay-to-play in the Illinois state government became public.

[Electric Graffiti]

Interesting.....good find.

[Marysecretary]

No more room under the O-bus!

[maggief]

ping!

[theymakemesick]

When I was at aerocenter crashing jets together, “heavy” indicated >300,000 lbs. Have the FAR’s changed?

[shove_it]

"The 'mystery' on this aspect can be easily 'put to bed' now."

It sounds right but I can't find a confirmation from an 'official source'. When I Google "Venus 1 Heavy passenger manifest", I get "the page cannot be found". Based on the MO of this 0bama regime, a lot of critical documents cannot be found. It stinks.

[_Jim]

It sounds right but I can't find a confirmation from an 'official source'.

What would it take - a transcript (or recording) of the ATC 'traffic' btw aircraft and tower/ARTCC that day?

That's available from the site you linked earlier ... (THIS is called 'primary reporting' where you review the primary 'evidence', in this case, the ATC radio traffic takibng place that day and 'report' that news ...)

[BradyLS]

My question is: Why would they try to hide it???

Why couldn’t the White House just come out and say, “Director George Lucas is paying a million bucks (or whatever) to the American people for an AL ANG F-16 and one of the craft we use for AF1 to make a fly-by over lower Manhattan during the week of...”

Why all the secrecy? I’d think they’d WANT to shout it from the roof-tops!

This Administration never stopped short on any self-serving stunt before. Why stop now???