Only this past week could a sitting Vice President pull a gaffe like publicly recommending that all Americans avoid going “anywhere in confined places now” due to a potentially dangerous flu virus, and NOT win the Common Sense Loss of the Week Award.  Veep Joe Biden, well known for speaking his mind, was really doing just that (and hey, we have all thought the same thing as swine flu cases rise), the problem is that in a time of crisis a leader just cant say such things.

But say it he did, setting off a fancy tap dance routine by Press Secretary Gibbs. In any other week that common sense lapse would certainly earn top billing, but last week was an unusual week.  For those of you hiding under a rock or recovering from the flu, someone in the government hierarchy had the brilliant idea for a top secret photo-op to update the pictures of “Bush’s Air Force One” to “Obama’s Air Force One” (Like there is a difference…)  To top it all off, the photo-op was to take place a few hundred feet above New York city skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty, in what would turn out to be a 9/11 flashback for many locals.   One has to wonder what the real reason could be  for such an insensitive operation… perhaps the presidential visitor’s brochure or “mug shot” was out of date, or maybe someone thought the Air Force One picture on Whitehouse.gov would look “sweet” with the New York City skyline in the backdrop.  Either way, the bottom line is that the whole thing was a silly idea in the first place.  Surprisingly, polarized blogs HuffingtonPost.com and MichelleMalkin.com both reacted strongly with articles demonstrating how the government could have avoided the $300k+ spent on the photo-op, not to mention the publicity nightmare, by using Photoshop for 5 minutes. (here and here).  And yes, it is possible…

Besides the ridiculous costs involved, the whole scare could have been completely avoided if someone, anyone, would have simply announced the operation 2 weeks in advance.  The Times reported that an FAA memo was released prior to the flight saying that information about the fly-by “should only be shared with persons with a need to know” and “shall not be released to the public or the media.”  So we can only assume it was classified “top secret” for some unknown reason which will probably defy common sense(HotAir). Sure, if it would have been publicized people would have almost certainly complained and called it insensitive, but at least no one would have feared for their lives.

Finding out for sure who was ultimately responsible for pushing the big green button (or coming up with the idea for that matter) is all but impossible, but Obama’s Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, did release the following semi-apology, which I can accept as an adequate response:

“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. 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.”

The statement triggered a flurry of speculation regarding President Obama’s knowledge of the event.  What do the conspiracy theorists think, really?  That President Obama had a board meeting in mid March and said… “Now… I’m on such a roll here folks and Ive, uh… got all this public support going.  I think…uh, we should really capitalize on it.  Why don’t we, um… pull a massive prank on oh, NYC.  I feel that um, if we do it on April Fools Day, everyone will love it.  It will be a great, uh, you know… joke.“  Of course Rahm must have thought it was such a hilarious idea that they should keep it in the circle of friends as an inside joke, and push the date back to April 27th.

Come on, isn’t it silly to think any sane person would knowingly (and therefore intentionally) scare the living daylights out of the city that has already shouldered the brunt of the nation’s pain from 9/11?  I  just don’t think it is as important to crucify a person who has  already shot his career in the foot… let’s just make sure nothing like this ever happens again.  The truth is, no matter who the buck really stops with, they aren’t the only ones who lacked some common sense.  There was a whole chain of people involved, and all it takes is one responsible person, even if it comes down to the pilot of the fighter jet.  He can say to his supervisor at any time: “Hey, so… isn’t this whole thing kinda… cruel?” or maybe even simply “do New Yorkers realize we are going to be doing this, because it could look pretty bad…“  And I think there probably were a few people who saw the big picture and had some doubts.  Its too bad that no one had the guts to speak up, because believe me, if you were the link in the chain who pulled the plug on this public relations nightmare you would be getting a nice pat on the back from Obama right now, just for saving his butt.  It is worth mentioning that Obama has initiated a review to find out who was responsible, so he appears to be genuinely concerned.  At the end of the day, It  turned out to be a mostly harmless, albeit cruel and insensitive, mistake. (It really could have been worse - fortunately those New Yorkers are a resilient and level-headed bunch, they knew what to do).

Basically,  some people at the top in Government suffered a severe brain fart, and the people who may have paused to think of the negative results… well, they kept their mouths shut.  After virtually no deliberation, the Common Sense Loss of the Week Award goes to whoever actually authorized the photo-op (tba), because lets face it, it was an extreme lapse of judgment and good sense.

Moral of the Story: When planning any high profile government exercise, like say; having a fighter jet chase the Air Force One just above one of the most populous city in the world,  remember that everyone is going to know about it… so you have to use your head.

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Tags: common sense, CSL, new york city, terrorists, the common sense republic

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at 11:01 pm and is filed under CSL of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.