Scare Force One Photo Released, WH Aide Loses Job

Well, here's what you paid $329,000 for:
Too bad you can't see the fleeing New Yorkers and New Jerseyites in the background.

The military aide who approved this mission is now looking for work:

WASHINGTON - The White House aide who authorized the controversial Air Force One photo-op flight last week around the Statue of Liberty is out of a job.

President Obama has accepted the resignation of Louis Caldera, the director of the White House Military Office, the Daily News learned Friday.

A secretary of the Army in the Clinton administration, Caldera took the fall for the public relations fiasco arising from the April 27 flyover, which was designed to replace a publicity photo of Air Force One flying past Mount Rushmore with a similar shot of Obama's 747 jumbo jet over the Statue of Liberty.

Caldera's office insisted the flyover was a "classified" mission and should not be disclosed to the public, ensuring that thousands of New Yorkers would be blindsided by an event eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 terror attacks against the Twin Towers.

Federal officials notified Mayor Bloomberg's office and NYPD officials in advance, but Bloomberg was not informed, infuriating the mayor.

Caldera shoulders the blame in deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina's review into how the decision was made to go ahead with the photo mission.

"The FAA warned the Military Office that the media needed to be advised of the flight. There were red flags," said an administration source.

Many White House officials were angry at Caldera over the stunt. "This (incident) was just plain stupid," one Obama aide said.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apologized for the flyover in a letter Tuesday to Sen. John McCain, who posted the memo on his Senate Web site Friday.

"I am concerned that this highly public and visible mission did not include an appropriate public affairs plan nor adequate review and approval by senior Air Force and DOD [Department of Defense] officials," Gates said in the letter.

"We deeply regret the anxiety and alarm that resulted from this mission," he added.

I like this shot better:
And I took this one as the plane landed in Long Beach in March. I'll sell it to the government for say...half of what they paid for the New York shot.