Libertyblog

Flyin’ Photo Op Followup

Some readers may be a bit confused by this aspect of the VC-25 squabble:

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD, the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

“To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it’s just confounding,” Sen. Charles Schumer said. “It’s what gives Washington and government a bad name. It’s sheer stupidity.”

Whatever the merits of the photo op itself, publicizing it well in advance would be very dangerous. Flying a symbol of American government at very low altitudes in a specific location with an enormous—and, as we witnessed, video-equipped—public watching would present an enormous opportunity for any jihadists with Stingers or the like in their possession. In addition, every general aviation pilot in the area would have been heading out for his own photos.

Publicizing the event immediately before it happened, however, would have been a wise step. I doubt the jihadists have someone sitting alert on the shore of the Hudson just in case a VC-25 flies by.

By the way, a US Senator and CBS should have been smart enought to know this. Of course, this isn’t the first time Chuck Schumer has been confounded by the obvious. (Via Drudge.)

Self-Interest

David Freddoso on Arlen Specter:

The departure of Arlen Specter looks very bad for the GOP. You never want to lose anyone. But could Senate Republicans have stopped it? No, not once it became clear that he was going to be trounced in his primary. Specter’s problem is not the party in the sense of its leadership or direction, but rather with the Republican voters in Pennsylvania.

Arlen Specter switched from Democrat to Republican in 1965 so that he could win an election. He is now doing the reverse for precisely the same reason.

If we take Arlen Specter’s word for why he is leaving, we have to accept the idea that the stimulus vote represented some kind of huge turning point for him. In fact, Specter’s apostasy on that vote was less remarkable than several others — for example, his vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, or his courageous refusal to vote either “yes” or “no” on Bill Clinton’s impeachment. The reason the stimulus vote matters is that it matters to voters and has become an issue in the primary — which again, is the only reason Specter is leaving the Republican Party.

If we take Specter’s word, then the GOP has become intolerant of moderate politicians like himself. On this score, Specter appears to have a severe case of amnesia. Exactly five years ago, the national Republican Party swooped into Pennsylvania and saved him from certain defeat at the hands of Rep. Pat Toomey (R). Valuable presidential time was sacrificed on his behalf. Also sacrificed for Arlen Specter was the reputation of his conservative colleague, Rick Santorum (R), who never recovered. From that moment forward, he lost his core constituency, and was easily defeated two years later by a pro-life Democrat.

Without essential help from the party that is so intolerant of people like him, Arlen Specter would already be a former senator today. It is not the party but the voters in Pennsylvania who have stopped tolerating Specter.

But They’re Still Absolutely Certain About Global Warming

Scientific consensus takes a turn:

The demise of the dinosaurs probably occurred 300,000 years after a giant meteor struck what is now Mexico, scientists said, casting doubt on a popular theory that the impact triggered a mass extinction.

The Chicxulub crater, which is about 180 kilometers (112 miles) across, was formed on the Yucatan peninsula when an extra-terrestrial object struck Earth 65 million years ago. Since its discovery in 1978, the crater has been cited as evidence that the impact’s aftermath led to the extinction of about 65 percent of all species including the dinosaurs.

New clues at other sites in Mexico showed that the extinction must have occurred 300,000 years after the Chicxulub impact and that even larger asteroids may not be the purveyors of doom they’re thought to be, according to a paper published in the Journal of the Geological Society by researchers from Princeton, New Jersey, and Lausanne, Switzerland.

“We found that not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact,” said Gerta Keller, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, in a release distributed by the Geological Society of London. “These are astonishing results.”

Keller and Thierry Adatte from the University of Lausanne found sediments linked to the mass extinction that were deposited above the sediments from the time of the asteroid impact. Proponents of the Chicxulub impact theory explain this discrepancy in the sedimentary record with earthquakes and tsunamis resulting from the asteroid impact.

(Via NRO Corner.)

Inept Politics

Two Power Line posts remind us Obambi has opted for continuing reminders of his unwillingness to discomfort jihadists and willingness to obliterate the unborn.

Note to the Uninformed

This is torture:

Intelligence was often extracted by breaking their limbs with a hammer, administering electric shocks and forcing men to perform sexual acts on each other. The bodies were either buried in unmarked pits or pulverised.

(Via Hot Air.)

Tipping Point

How much do you have to raise taxes on the Beautiful People before they start behaving rationally? Paging Michael Caine:

“The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent, and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America,” he said at the weekend. “We’ve got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I’m 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let’s get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it up.”

(Via Hot Air.)

My Senators ...

... react to the departure of Scottish law expert Arlen Specter from the party. Graham, sounding remarkably like part of the problem:

“I don’t want to be a member of the Club for Growth,” said Graham. “I want to be a member of a vibrant national Republican party that can attract people from all corners of the country — and we can govern the country from a center-right perspective.”

“As Republicans, we got a problem,” he said.

DeMint, sounding remarkably like me:

I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.

“I Can Certainly Tell You That There Will Not Be Any More Flyovers”

That reaction to the VC-25 New York City photo op reminded me a bit of this:

That just about covers the fly-bys.

The organizers of this fun would have been better advised to do it at sunrise on a weekend. In the event, they were stuck between two possible notification strategies. If they told everyone and his brother, somebody would have said “no,” citing cost issues or, more precisely, the appearance of cost issues. (These guys are savvy enough to have ensured both aircrews completed suitable training events to justify the exercise.) If they told no one, the reaction would have been pretty much what we saw, with slightly less ass-covering.

There isn’t much good news here for my fellow airlifters. The maxim, “It is easier to receive forgiveness than permission,” a cornerstone of military operations, may not hold up in this case. On the other hand, they’ll no longer have to fill White House requests for aerial photos of Air Force One flying over landmarks.

UPDATE: Just to bring things full circle, the only notable aviation photo I had any association with appeared in Life magazine in November, 1986 (“a warplane weathers frostbite in Florida”). It was the B-1B all-weather test in the McKinley Climatic Laboratory, Eglin AFB. By coincidence, Tom Cruise is on the cover.

Good Riddance

It is easier to defend—and grow—a Republican Party without Arlen Specter than defend one that includes him.

Illogical

James Taranto notes Obambinomics at work. The Messiah:

And yet, in a paradox of American life, at the very moment it’s never been more important to have a quality higher education, the cost of that kind of education has never been higher.

Taranto:

Something that is more valuable than ever is also more costly than ever? That isn’t a paradox, it’s a tautology!