The White House The White House on Friday released the April 27 photo of the plane flying over New York City.The director of the White House Military Office submitted his resignation on Friday, less than two weeks after he authorized a flyover by an Air Force One backup of the Statue of Liberty that terrified thousands of people in New York City.
Louis Caldera, who served as the secretary of the Army in the Clinton administration, apologized for the “distraction” that approving the flyover caused. He said in a brief letter to President Obama on Friday that it “has made it impossible for me to effectively lead the White House Military Office.”
On April 27, a plane that usually serves as the president’s plane was flying low over the New York City skyline, trailed closely by two fighter jets. It was a photo opportunity – authorized by several government officials, including Mr. Caldera – that infuriated Mr. Obama.
Last week, Mr. Obama ordered a deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, to review the incident. And on Friday afternoon, a seven-page review of the matter was released, along with the photograph.
Mr. Messina, in his memorandum to the president, said that “structural and organizational ambiguities” in the White House Military Office led to a series of miscommunications and senior aides to the president were not advised of the flyover that had been in the planning stages since March.
“The breakdown was the lack of public notification,” the memorandum states, adding that Mr. Caldera believed others had been notified about the flight.
“If he had been aware that the flight would cause so much trouble or any embarrassment to the president or to the White House,” the report said, “he never would have allowed it to go forward.”
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Wow. What a beautiful image!
— CBIt really is too bad that they screwed up the publicity - what a waste of beautiful opportunity.
Thank you for your resignation Mr. Caldera. Thank you for releasing the photo White House.
after all that, thats the best picture they could get?! they at least could have played with the color balance.
— cdGood.
I hope “resign” is euphemism for “fired.”
— xIt looks Adobe Photoshopped to me…
— adam256Should’ve photoshop’d it, would’ve turned out better and saved a lot of headaches.
— SASI don’t see anything that couldn’t have been slapped together in ten minutes using basic Photoshop.
— WellsNo matter what his earlier service of background, Caldera deserved to be fired and not even given a chance to resign. Think of his judgement; we would not want him anywhere near the president.
— Jawaralal G. BernsteinThe photographer should resign too. This image is hardly worth the bad publicity.
— MarkGood riddance!
— Carol AnnePlease explain WHY someone thought it best NOT to alert the public this would be happening? I heard they decided not to, but NEVER heard WHY. Please report, and be SPECIFIC about their reasoning for keeping this to themselves??!!?? Makes NO sense to me at all.
Bob O’Lary
— Bob OLaryThis so called democracy makes me laugh. They sacked an infomercial in poor taste and the government, the one with hope and change on its sleeves, wants to look forward and not backwards to avoid war crimes prosecutions and letting those guilty parties make a mockery of our Magna Carta. Talking about screwed up prioritites. But the latest news about war crimes and why Obama doesn’t want to look backwards is because many democrats, including Obama, that use their opposition to the war in Iraq their forte, went back on thier word to cover up their involvement on those policies of torture and the candidate of hope and change brought us another more of the same. Another stay the course, but different semantics.
— Jorge I. GomezIf this is democracy, we killed some innocent nazis and if now following orders is O.K., why then it did not fly. The answer lies in the game of politics. What others do, we call genocide and no excuse is acceptable, even for concentration camp guards, but when we are in charge of genocide, torture, invasions, then it’s O.K. because the world is afraid of belling the cat. In other words, Heads, you lose, tails, I win. Welcome to hypocrisy to the nth degree. O tempora, O Mores!
Using separate photos of the plane & location merged togheter would be much cheaper and easier, but I guess not appropriate for official White House photos.
— VIn any case, a thoughtless fly-over…
I wish the White House would release the entire series of photos with Air Force One from previous Administrations with national shrines as the focal point. The one from Mt. Rushmore is wonderful.
— JohnThat’s it?!?! Isn’t the public entitled to an explanation (or perhaps it’s just me that really wants one) as to WHAT they were thinking, whether they discussed the fear that this would cause, and if they did, why they chose to disregard that fear in favor of the flyover?!?!
I mean, REALLY. WHAT were they thinking?
I hate to see someone get fired over this, but this was a COMPLETE lack of judgment. If the public reaction didn’t even come up as a possible, that just shows an absolute absence of common sense and sympathy. And if it DID come up, but was minimized, it shows a complete lack of judgment. These being the only two scenarios I can think of, either one to me is justification for letting the person go.
Actually, hearing my own argument, I guess no explanation is needed, since the decision, either way, simply speaks for itself.
— stleakeThis is all taxpayers get for $300k?
— JamesThe White House really botched this, first by having the Office of Military Affairs headed by a political appointee and then not sizing up this guy, Louis Caldera, before installing him in that post. They should not have touched with a ten foot pole an ex-director of Indymac Bank and, like the rest of that bank’s disastrous know-nothing Board, totally flubbed his responsibilities while serving on it for years. But at least by firing him now Obama raises his toughness quotient, something he just needs to hit his stride on.
— henryrThey could have saved $400k and just used photoshop.
— Not NBThat totally looks like one of those steel models they sell at Daffy’s positioned in front of a framed picture…with bad lighting. Wasn’t one of the points to get the NYC skyline in the background? Fail…
— RLIt would have cost how much to do that same shot using PhotoShop? And they could have perfected the color balance, reduced the sun glare and gotten rid of the background fog while there were at it.
— CT_WoodsWhat a waste. Someone had a tin ear and no common sense. Outta there!
Terrible photograph: window glare. poor composition, weird color cast, etc. what a joke. 45 seconds in photoshop with some stock images would have produced something of significantly higher quality.
Why isn’t Obama taking any blame for this? It’s his administration - he should know what’s going on. What a great way to spend a few hundred thousand dollars…
— JohnnyPoor Senor Caldera. He graduated from West Point and went to(and graduated from law school). His track record , however, is not one that would have made the Obama vetters grab him. He failed as President of the Univ. of New Mexico. And now he can come back to Albuquerque and be a law school faculty member. He might even want to run for governor in this pay-to-play state(Richardson will be gone in 2011 thank you). Oh well, Caldera has a good brain, yet like most progressives he lacks common sense.
— Dr. R.D.B. LaimeGood grief. Yes, he should have shown better judgement. But is his whole career to be judged by this? Wasn’t he really good - before - to have been appointed to this job? Does enthusiasm play a role? Is this a fatal flaw? If so, wasn’t it in evidence before? We are really, really touchy these days, it seems.
— Sharon, Bremen Germany$300k for that?
— DaveA grorgeous image, but why did they use fighters? And not one, but two? If the planes were carrying balloons or if they were of a Good Year Blimp style, it may not have caused such havoc and fear. Of course, this image could easily have been stuck in the photo. Not authentic, perhaps, but authentically manufactured, yes?
— Mimi PinkOf course someone had to be the fall guy , , , the guy who probably suggested the idea is sittin’ pretty in the White House!
— Da Fall Guy