Rush Limbaugh on the Gibbs press conference:
Here's Gibbs, this is the best one. This is yesterday at the White House, Gibbs doing the press briefing and he had an exchange here with Chuck Todd of NBC and Bill Plante, CBS. Chuck Todd said, "Do you guys feel you owe folks in New York City this morning an apology for this incident having to do with the airplane that looks like Air Force One, with two fighter jets? There seemed to be a lot of panic."
GIBBS: I would contact the White House. I -- I -- I'd
PLANTE: The White House military --
RUSH: Hold it a second. Stop the tape and recue it. You are the White House! (laughing) The press secretary at the briefing room in the White House, which is in the West Wing, is telling the press to contact the White House.
GIBBS: I would contact the White House. I -- I -- I'd --
PLANTE: The White House military office won't tell us anything. They'll refer us to you.
GIBBS: Then let me go discuss with the White House military -- I don't -- I have seen some news reports, but I don't know. That's -- I have no information on this, what I saw --
TODD: The way this works, I'm just saying, appearance-wise, it's odd that you guys don't have a response. I mean this is the president's aircraft or what looks like the president's --
GIBBS: I -- I -- I was working on other things. I -- I -- you might be surprised to know I don't know every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it, but I will certainly talk to the military office.
RUSH: You certainly as hell know the days you're not going to be on it, and you know the days you are. Boy, I'll tell you this is buck passing like I have rarely ever seen it. I mean, folks, this plane doesn't go anywhere. These two 747s do not go anywhere without Barack Obama knowing about it or being on it because when they're gone, he can't take one, he cannot use one. He's got to know it's not available. I'm surprised Gibbs didn't say, "Well, we're looking into this now. We think that right-wing extremists who are returning from the war have taken the airplane up, we'll let you know."
RUSH: All right. Look, I'm sorry, folks, but I have to ask this question. Thanks for the call out there, Mike. I have to ask this question, because I'm not an idiot. You send a Boeing 747, which is Air Force One -- and either one or two, I'm not sure; I only saw pictures of one, but there might have been two F-16s, the escort jets. Presumably that's where the pictures were being taken, you know, the Air Force jet getting the view of Air Force One right in front of the Statue of Liberty and so forth. But you don't need to do that to get a picture of Air Force One near the Statue of Liberty. And furthermore, do they not have a picture of this 747 near the Statue of Liberty? They've probably got pictures of this Air Force One in Grand Canyon, you know, flying underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.
Well, not underneath, but, you know, they probably got... Why do you need 'em? (interruption) Now, wait a second. No, no. Stick with me on this, Snerdley. It had nothing to do with being Obama's plane. It's not as though you have to have publicity shots for Air Force One in order to sell tickets for people to ride it, because no matter what people do, they cannot get on Air Force One. So what does it really matter? Where is this PR photo going to be used? And to what purpose? You could do the same thing with Photoshop. You really could. You can accomplish the same thing with Photoshop. Now, you stop and think of this. We're all sitting here, and except for the people in lower Manhattan, people are laughing about this.
But you stop and think for a minute: Do you really believe that everybody involved had no idea that this would cause a panic? Do you really believe that everybody involved thought, "Big deal. We're going to go up there and get a photo-op in front of the statue. Nobody needs to know." Do we really believe that there's not one person in the chain of command that caused this event yesterday that didn't realize that a Boeing 747 at a thousand feet over Ground Zero was just going to be looked up at, "Oh, man, Mabel, look at that! Why, it's a little off course. I wonder what the president's doing?" Is that really the reaction people are just going to have? There's more to this than we know. I have no idea what. I'm just telling you the excuses that are coming out of this...
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