Air Force One flyover photos, $328k for what?

The Pentagon has released 146 more photos from Air Force One's New York flyover. You can view them here and you can also view the redacted flight manifest here.

After looking at all of the photos I must say, I wonder what was this fly over really about? We were told that it was a training mission and that they wanted to update file photos of Air Force One. But after looking at all the photos I kind of wonder.

The first thing I immediately noticed about the photos themselves is that none of them contain the majestic New York City skyline. There are angles that could have easily given Air Force One with both the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Such an image would have been far more dramatic than the ones they took. Heck, why fly Air Force One all the way up to New York if you are not going to take full advantage of scenery and get your money's worth?

Also as someone who know more than a thing or two about photography, I have to say these photos are kind of on the amateur side. They seem more like snapshots than professional file photos. Just Google any military aircraft you can think of and you will see better photos than these. Clearly the military has photographers with skills, so why are these so crummy?

After seeing these photos I have to say, it all seems like a bigger waste of taxpayer's money than before.

$328,835.00 and all I got was one lousy picture!

This is it? This is the picture from the $300k fly over that terrified lower Manhattan? Give me a break! This is so typical of anything the government does, no bang for a ton of bucks. The is even window glare in the upper right hand corner and a distracting shadow in lower right. If this was the best of the shots (no photographer in the world would have shot just one) I would hate to see what the rest look like.

Today Louis Caldera was fired for not notifying the public about the fly over. Ok, that is fine, but what about the mental midget who thought wasting almost $329k during a recession was a good idea? That is the person who should be thrown out on their ass like yesterday. This unimpressive photo could have been done for less than a grand with PhotoShop. To prove that point the New York Daily News ran a contest asking readers to produce their own fly over photos. Some of the entries are even better than the one above!

So to Obama and his administration of wasteful spenders, I say, give us the head of the dumb dumb who flushed $329k of our hard earned money down the crapper!

UPDATED: They're just so 9/10

Obama and his flying monkeys (pun intended) did not think before they did an Air Force One NYC flyby. For anyone who 9/11 made an impact, the idea would have set off bells and whistles the second it was suggested. Not these guys.

For them it is still 9/10/2001. They ignore the true dangers of nuclear proliferation thinking that M.A.D will still work, thus no need for bolstering anti missile defense. They worry not about a small band of foreign invaders wreaking major havoc on cities and thus feel free to use DHS to attack their domestic political enemies. They still buy into the wrong headed notion that appeasing our enemies will buy us good will, completely ignoring the fact that 9/11 showed the world that you can strike the American Homeland.

Sadly for many on the left, nothing has changed since 9/11.

UPDATED 4/28/2009

It now turns out that there is a FAA memo that indicates the Feds, knew the flight would cause panic and did it anyway. They even went as far as to demand that NYPD and the Mayor's Office not mention it to the public. Talk about arrogance!