Wonkette
Yesterday while the rest of you were out shopping for booze or maybe just emptying out the still in anticipation of today’s 12th annual National Unemployment Day, President Obama was hard at work hanging out with a bunch of pilots — some pretty awesome lady pilots from World War II, and also the first female Thunderbird pilot. Sometimes his job does not seem so bad. [The President's Very Effective Propaganda Photo Site]
Aw, nice alt-text.
I didn’t know there were sexy lady-pilots dogfighting Nazis. For an aviation-history buff like me, that’s downright titillating.
See, George Bush would have *really* made that a memorable event for them, prolly asked one of them to get him some roasted peanuts or another pillow. This new guy… what’s he got going for him?
“What’s the deal with airplane peanuts?”
frumious_bandersnatch: And Bill would have been grabbing some ass.
Oh great — now they’re going to be wanting to vote.
ok, that IS pretty cool…
What is it about women in uniforms? Hubba hubba.
What’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) doing in this photo? It doesn’t say if she sponsored a bill awarding them the medal or if she was a pilot or if she was just passing through and wanted a little Obama to start off her weekend right.
“Raise your hand if you’re in the Mile-High Orgy Club …”
If all those women were WW2 flyers, some are remarkably well preserved.
the lady-Nazi-asskicker to Barry’s left/our right def. looks like a lil’ ol’ hellion… :0)
Sarah Palin isn’t worthy enough to shine these women’s shoes. So there.
Autochthon: Totally.
And check out this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/3679281429/in/photostream/
Rosie Scenario: Hahahahahaha — now that’s what I call bipartisan!
InsidiousTuna: I didn’t know there were sexy lady-pilots dogfighting Nazis.
I think the ladies were mostly just flying transport missions. Y’know, ferrying crucial supplies of nylons and chocolates over to Europe so our boys on the ground could get a little nookie from the chicks they were liberating from the fascists…
[singing] Come fly with me / Come fly, let’s fly away…
You can almost see the Lewinski’s legendary butt prints on the glistening WH desk.
Aviatrix? Isn’t that what you call a dominatrix who has bird flu?
Terry: I also suspect they take no guff. BTW, the female pilots that fly the A-10 Thunderbolt get some major A$$.
If it were Clinton, there’d be one under the desk.
Still, calling them all WASPs in the captions seems pretty low. It’s not like Martha Stewart and Ruth Madoff were there.
The President’s Very Effective Propaganda Photo Site
I’ll say! Every time some shit happens, they release new photos, and everyone collectively forgets everything bad to coo at the president and his ridiculously adorable family.
Aviatrix makes me think of tall ladies in high-heeled boots, corsets, and angel wings.
I want to have lunch with these awesome women too.
New porn genre:
MILFs in uniform!
I didn’t know Bar Bush was a WW2 pilot.
Fucking ADORABLE. The end.
Hawaiiexpat: More like GILFS, or even GGILFS.
Lascauxcaveman: My dad, who was a fighter-pilot (night-fighter, in fact) in WWII, has told me about these women. They also flew new planes to the fronts, so fighter-pilots could be freed up to bring down the Fascists…
Totally adorable, but he still looks high from the Ben-Gay fumes.
Postergirl for women in service WWII: Bernice Falk Haydu
Postergirl for women in service Iraq II: Lynndie England
This is where the white women at?
WASP pilot Bernice Falk Haydu pulls back the chair of President Barack Obama to give him some matronly tongue.
Wasn’t this the basis of one of the verses in Cheap Trick’s Surrender?
All of those women are now pregnant…with hope!!
Great. Now I feel truly unaccomplished since all I have done in my life is gain (through life experience) the equivalent of a master’s degree in basking. Of course, that makes me a masterbasker but nothing that would get in a photo behind Obama in the White House.
Women pilots. What next? Just like gay rights leads to sex with children and animals, female pilots will lead to a black president. And then everything we believe in and live for will be shot to hell. Buy duct tape and build your fallout bunkers now.
Cicada: Best part of being president: You get to have lunch with anyone you want.
Worst part: Almost everything else, including trying to grab a burger and having that gabfest Joe Biden tag along.
Oh that’s just too damn cute and America is just too damn adorable now with Hopey around. Why do Republicans hate America and want to nuke it?
That expression and gesture brings to mind a photo with him, Michelle, and baby Malia, on the night he lost to Bobby Rush. Big win here.
The one on the far right resembles Danica Patrick … I wonder if she flies the No. 11 GoDaddy jet?
The cabins purged by satellites
now we’re flying blind
we’ve got a lady pilot,
she’s not afraid to die.
WIDTAP: No, fuck that. Sorry, but a lot servicewomen have been killed over there, not to mention the fact that a lot of them have been raped by their fellow servicemen. England doesn’t get to represent them. Not by a long shot.
InsidiousTuna:
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Airforce_Service_Pilots, where we also learn that most (all?) the WWII WASPs already had private pilot licenses and joined up to ferry fighters and bombers from the factories to airbases in England, as well as “towing targets for live anti-aircraft artillery practice, simulated strafing missions, and transporting cargo.”
But wait! Before we get too warm and fuzzy, let us also note that, like the Tuskegee Airmen and the 442nd Infantry, the brave lady pilots also got the opportunity to have their contributions dismissed by the Powers That Were: “Thirty-eight WASP fliers lost their lives while serving their country during the war. Because they were not considered to be in the military under the existing guidelines, a fallen WASP was sent home at family expense without traditional military honors or note of heroism. The military would not even allow the U.S. flag to be put on fallen WASP pilots coffins.”
I was initially worried that Obama’s meeting with these women wouldn’t have any angles that the Freepers and Redstate could gripe about, but there you have it: affirmative action ZOMG!
Cicada: thanks, I was going to say that she doesn’t represent female soldiers any more than Graner (sp?) (her lover and partner in crime) represents male ones. That comment is just over the line.
WIDTAP: No, not really; not by a long shot. How about Postergirl for women in service Iraq II: Kayla Williams?
Damn skippy way to inaugurate proper 4th of July celebrations. I’m getting all verklempt now.
And thanks, DoctorZoom, for the background, mostly shamefully regrettable as it is.
Can we, now it being the 21st Century and all, really, really manage to achieve the equality that even the Founding Fathers could not have imagined?
DoktorZoom: or, Tammy Duckworth??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth
Egregious: Show me a woman who flies an A 10 and I will screw her. That is, if she gives pale, pudgy state employees the time ‘o day.
Hopey:
“Now ladies, come stand right here if you want to see a throttle.”
Monsieur Grumpe: http://www.strangemilitary.com/images/content/135468.jpg
I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to salute.
This really does say a lot about how Obama differs from our last few presidents. Here, everyone is enjoying themselves. Under Bush, he would be trying uncomfortably to give them shoulder rubs while tell sexist jokes that don’t make sense. Under Clinton, an orgy.
Bronkers: I dunno about “mostly shamefully regrettable,” although certainly that applies to the lack of official recognition and probably to lot of the contemporary coverage: “Girls are very serious about their chance to fly for the Army … even when it means giving up nail polish, beauty parlors, and dates” (LIFE, 1943).
On the other hand, for the pilots themselves, it looks like, comparatively speaking, they were having a blast: flying high-performance planes, contributing to the war effort, and busting down the doors of the Boys’ Club. They even had a Unit Mascot designed by Walt “Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors” Disney. And thanks to the combination of this nifty Wonkette post and a day off, I’m going to have fun poking around some of the way-cool WASP stuff at sites like http://wingsacrossamerica.us/wasp/index.htm
Why is Happy Gilmore’s grandma grabbing Obama’s chair?
She should just go to sleep, before Ben Stiller puts her to sleep.
Autochthon:
Didn’t the women also test the planes that had just been repaired to see if they were safe enough for the combat pilots to use?
WIDTAP: Cicada: Doglessliberal:
Lori Piestewa
Sorry no snark.
Terry: That, I haven’t heard.
Daddy HAS said that he and his fellow pilots, before going on patrol, would shake the wings of their planes* so that the loose bolts fell out, then climb into the cockpit and take off…
*English Beaufighters, in this instance
DoktorZoom: While you’re at it. Look up the female pilots who applied for the space program early on - totally rejected, of course, and then totally and righteously po’d when John Glenn got to go to space a second time just for being old when they couldn’t go to space the first time just for being women.
This is what I call a target rich environment.
My flight instructor was a WASP.
She still lives here in Santa Monica. I was told she was too ill to attend the festivities today.
Her name is Claire Walters.
She told awesome stories.
Claire was also a founding member (along with Amelia Earhart) of the 99’s, a group of women pilots who started a club for mutual support and adventure.
Makes me prouder.
Doglessliberal: At least Palin can dress up like a slutty flight attendant.
The lady behind Obama looks like she’s shocked the president is “colored”
WadISay: True, and then lie about it
If that photo didn’t make so downright sentimental and proud, I’d be inspired to go punch Glenn Beck in the face.
When the B-29 was having major “teething problems” (read, “Flying Out Of The Sky In Flames”), Col. Paul Tibbets got two WASP pilots that he knew to deliver new B-29s to his unit (which dropped the atomic bombs on Japan).
Both had several thousand hours in multi-engine aircraft, which has really unusual for the time. Also, both were Not Bad Looking (at least, by wartime standards):
http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/spring2002/features/flygirl/32b_PU.jpg
The subtext to the men was was, “If these Babes can handle this allegedly ‘unflyable’ airplane, what are you PUSSIES whining about.”
The result? At least 200,000 Japanese incinerated and irradiated . . . FOR FREEDOM!
(Thought I was going to go soft, didn’t you?)
Go WASPs! Lipstick Lesbos Look BETTER in a flight suit than the Codpiece Clown who used sit in the Oval Office.
Doglessliberal: “Sarah Palin isn’t worthy enough to shine these women’s shoes. So there.”
Well said, sir. Well said. :::polite golf clap, pausing only to look up as aircraft passes over course:::
rubybuckaroo: Wow, that’s a gift, being so close to a living font first-hand historical experience. You should do some interviews with her and record them or write it up in a blog or a journal, you know, while she is still tellin’ the tales. I’d buttsecks something like that.
I would like everyone to refer to me as a “librariatrix” from now on please. If it helps, I will get a uniform.
problemwithcaring: Ruby: I agree with Problem: Tape her and write it up.
(Maybe about the buttsecks, too. I mean, if she ferried T-bolts or Mustangs, etc.)
Finally: Fifinella, the Disney-created mascot of the WASPs:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Fifinella.jpg
A little dykey, but in that Amelia Erhart-kinda way that Any Sane Man Would Go For . . . (buttsecks or otherwise).
On a more negative note: That photo goes give credence to the old Naval Aviation saying: “Flare to land, squat to pee!”
(It would take longer to explain than it is worth. At least to non-pilots.)
Hey, I might be late to this party, and sorry no snark from a newbie, but…
The women on the left who is not WWII era is Bobbi (last name withheld) and she was the first female F-22 pilot. She’s whip smart and awesome. The younger lady w/brown hair on the right, who’s name I forget, was the first female F-15 pilot.
Just wanted to let everyone know I know some pretty awesome women, and now, by extention, Hopey. Yay.
governingbody: You don’t have to withhold her name — it’s printed here with all the other attendees — see the bottom of the article.
http://salem-news.com/articles/july012009/obama_wasps_7-1-09.php
Barry holds all the aces.
Doglessliberal: There’s a line?
Ok, Ok! Sorry ladies. My bad.
I’m going with zenferret’s call for Lori Piestewa.
Do I at least get to compare Nicole “FiFi” Malachowski’s call sign to the WASP’s mascot? No? I should just shut up and move along?
Ok.
DoktorZoom: Have I told you lately that I love you?
Thank you so much for the information on these amazing women. As a fellow veteran of the female persuasion, I am always enthralled by stories of the unsung uniformed heroes (of which I am most assuredly not).
My desk looks just like Hopey’s–a telephone machine, impossibly thin Mac and a tempting tray of cigarettes.
Scandalabra: Those are signing pens for the legislation, not cigarettes.
The Great Black Hope has no vices, remember.
(Him being surrounded by White Womyns was just a coincidence . . . .)