Remember that panic-inducing flight Air Force One took over the Statue of Liberty the other week? Well, the man responsible, Louis Caldera, has just resigned from his post as director of the White House Military Office. The WH sent along the above photo of the incident, a scanned copy [PDF] of Caldera's resignation letter, and the report [PDF] produced during the investigation into why the flights were authorized.
The President has asked his Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and Defense Secretary Gates or his designee to jointly review the organizational structure of the White House Military Office and the reporting relationship of its components to the White House and the Air Force, and to make recommendations to him to ensure that such an incident never occurs again.
Caldera's resignation letter says, in part, that the controversy around the decision "has made it impossible for me to effectively lead the White House Military Office. Moreover, it has become a distraction to the important work you are doing as President." And as many will no doubt note, the announcement came at the traditional time for bad news ... after four on a Friday afternoon. Caldera, by all accounts, was a solid public servant, but this was an embarrassing mistake, and unfortunately that's the way it goes in Washington. Obama, for all his idealism, has never shown much interest in tolerating distractions of this type that might get in the way of his broader goals.
-- Tim Fernholz
