Shire Network News #162: Why Did You Run?

Shire Network News #162 has been released. The feature interview is with Reut Cohen, host of Pajamas TV’s Shairia and Jihad Review show. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to "Consider This!"

Last week, Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, decided that a new picture of one of the planes typically used as Air Force One needed an update.  So he approved the mission.  Now, they wanted a particular shot, so they flew the plane in low over the area to get just the right angle.

And they did.  Well, at least I hope they did.  The intent was to get a shot of the plane with the Statue of Liberty in the background.  The old one, with Mount Rushmore in it, was just so dated, I suppose.  So they spent $330,000 dollars and snapped some photos from the accompanying fighter jets.  Which is not so bad, actually.  My daughter’s graduating from high school, and have you seen how much they charge for senior pictures?

The problem was that, in order to do this, as I said the plane had to fly in low and make a few passes.  Low over Manhatten.  A jet liner, flying low over Manhatten.  With two fighter jets chasing it. 

What was Mr. Caldera thinking?  Did he let the local authorities know?

Well, as it turns out, he did.  Except he also told those authorities to keep it a secret.  "Be vewy, vewy, qwiet, we’re taking pwane pictures", (in my best Elmer Fudd impression.)  So he had the best of intentions, I suppose.  Fly a 380,000 pound 4-engine airliner at 1500 feet over the Status of Liberty, but let’s all stay hush-hush about it and no one will know.

Except, as you might suspect, they did.  Some New Yorkers, seeing this unanticipated flight of "Scare Force One", became afraid of what might be happening.  There are videos all over the net showing people running from this, and stories of buildings that were evacuated in anticipation of the worst.  The FAA even figured this would happen, but still kept everything on the Q-T.

Well, because of this (fully anticipated) reaction, the FAA has cancelled a second photo shoot that was to take place next month … over Washngton, DC!  True story.  They wanted a shot with the capitol in the background.  No, really, I am not making this up.  Next stop, the Pentagon.

Later, we can have the plane buzzing Pearl Harbor.  And I understand that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has invited us to have the plane fly over Tehran where his people could shoot it.  Pictures, I mean. I think.

But seriously folks, I do have a question that I’d like to ask of all those New Yorkers who voted for Obama because there’s no danger from radical Muslims on what Obama’s Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair called "a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009".  I have a question for those who think that the so-called "War on Terror" was a Bush-Hitler/Halliburton psy-ops inside job to scare everyone into giving up their freedom so Dick Cheney’s buddies could steal all the oil in the Middle East, plastic turkey, there were no WMDs, fake CIA intelligence, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo torture etc., etc., etc.

If you elected Obama on that basis, if it’s September 10th again, if America really has hit the reset button and all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds……

…then why did you run when you saw that plane headed for Manhattan?  That fear you felt, was that something that the Bush administration planted in you, or was it deeper than that?  Could it be that maybe, just maybe, evil really does still exist out there and that, in spite of all your bravado and all the feel-good talk of this President, you, too, know that it is still out there and must be defeated?

Why did you run?  Who did you think it was?  The next time you cast your vote, the next time you think about our nation’s security, consider this.

Filed under: Podcasts • Shire Network News • Terrorism

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