Hope and Fail

Telling the Air Force to move F-22 from speech venue

When President Obama spoke to airmen at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska on his way to Asia, his handlers made an ostentatious demand. From Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog:

When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska’s Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to an older F-15 fighter because they didn’t want Obama speaking in front of the F-22, a controversial program he fought hard to end.

“White House aides actually made them remove the F-22-said they would not allow POTUS to be pictured with the F-22 in any way, shape, or form,” one source close to the unit relayed.

Stephen Lee, a public affairs officer at Elmendorf, confirmed to The Cable that the F-22 was parked in the hangar and then was replaced by an F-15 at the White House’s behest.

Continued production of the F-22 Raptor was scrapped from a Defense appropriations bill at the request of the White House, but is there really a need to cut it out the background of a speech too? Especially when the president praised the squadrons at the base that fly the F-22:

Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, you keep America’s skies safe. So we salute the 3rd Wing. And the 11th Air Force. (Applause.)

You project power across the Pacific, returning just recently from Guam: the 90th Fighter Squadron — the “Dicemen.” (Applause.) And the 525th Fighter Squadron — the “Bulldogs.” (Applause.) And all the maintenance troops who support them. Welcome home. (Applause.)

Instead of honoring the airmen who fly and maintain the fighters, the president offended them:

The airmen there took offense to the Obama aides’ demand, sources told The Cable, seeing it as a slight to the folks who are operating the F-22 proudly every day. They also expressed bewilderment that the White House staff would even care so much as to make an issue out of the fact that the F-22 was placed in the hangar with the president.

… “It’s one thing to be against further production; quite another to slight the folks who are flying them in the operational world,” one source said, adding that “the F-15 pictured was put into service roughly around the same period when Obama graduated from college. It’s vintage.”

Unrelated to the F-22, but fitting for the president nonetheless, Elmendorf hosted the Special Olympics bowling tournament later in the month.