Air Force One

Reports are surfacing that a 747 and an F-16 flew around the air space of lower Manhattan this morning. No advance warning of the flyby was given, but afterwards the FAA announced that it was an "approved military photo op" using one of the airliners used as Air Force One. On this occasion 44 was not on board. The White House declined to comment and reaction in the press is sketchy at this time. Needless to say, many NYC residents became apprehensive at the sight of a large commercial airliner flying low near Manhattan. If 44 was aware of the mission, a fair question would be: What was he thinking?
More updates are sure to follow.
Update: last night on the CBS Evening News a very serious looking Katie Couric assured us that 44 was "furious" about the incident. Well, that should settle things. No hard hitting investigations about why the executive branch was caught flat footed by a stupid stunt. And in case you were concerned, the major networks spent half of their programs covering the ongoing swine flu epidemic; 44 announced at a speech he gave at the National Academy of Science that there was "no cause for alarm."
This piece at the NY Times gives a surprising amount of credit to 43 for laying the groundwork for a federal response to infectious diseases like the swine flu. So far, 44 has refrained from given credit to 43, although he has been free to blame 43 from economic and diplomatic problems he faces.