Claim: Barack Obama removed the U.S. flag from the tail of Air Force One and replaced it with his own logo.
FALSE
Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2011]
HOW DOES ANYONE GET AWAY WITH THIS? SAD.
Obama Removes American Flag from His Plane
He has turned Air Force One into a campaign slogan carrier... not only the Obama Campaign logo on the tail, it bears his Campaign Slogan. I do believe in most States there are laws against something so blatantly an abuse of power, using public funds for campaigning. Atop this "personalization of Air Force One", Obama has logged more miles than any previous President. We have a triple A president Audacity, Abuse, and Arrogance... He should pay for the cost of repainting/restoring the craft.... this guy has to go.
Photograph ©
Rob Olewisnki
Origins: In late 2011, the pictures displayed above were circulated with the claim that emblems depicting the
This rumor was just a repackaging of an item that had circulated years earlier, during the 2008 presidential campaign, regarding the removal of American flag emblems from the airplane used by the Obama campaign. As we wrote at that time:
Given the length and breadth of modern presidential campaigns, it has become
Although Senator Barack Obama flew on a variety of aircraft during the long 2008 presidential campaign season, from March through June 2008 he primarily used a Boeing
However, once the primary campaign effectively ended and Senator Obama became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, his campaign plane underwent a month-long refurbishment to prepare it for the general election campaign, a process that included reconfiguring the interior seating and modifying the exterior markings to identify and publicize the aircraft as Barack Obama's official campaign plane. The latter activity included replacing the North American Airline color scheme and markings with the Obama campaign slogan ("Change We Can Believe In"), the BARACKOBAMA.COM domain name, and Obama's sunrise/flag
Two U.S. flag images were removed from the airplane during the refurbishment, although technically they were not ordinary representations of the American flag; rather, they were commercial markings of North American Airlines, whose logo (a registered trademark of that company) employs a stylized rendition of the
Original North American version |
Modified Obama campaign version |
Last updated: 16 April 2012
Sources: |
Cooper, Michael. "For McCain, Airliner Interior as Campaign Motif." The New York Times. 29 June 2008. Gavrilovic, Maria. "Obama's New Plane to Meet Him Overseas." CBSNews.com. 20 July 2008. Kapp, Bonney. "Obama's 757 Is Back in Service." FOXNews.com. 20 July 2008. Oinounou, Mosheh. "Air 'Straight Talk' Launches." FOXNews.com. 30 June 2008.