At some point between a politician’s election and the time he takes office, there generally comes a shift. The hokey ephemera used to promote a candidate comes down, replaced by a more serious theme that emphasizes a politician’s office rather than his ideology, which should manifest itself in his or her actions.

Somehow, the Obama campaign never made this transition. Having already achieved its goals of rolling over rival contenders Clinton, Edwards and McCain, it just keeps on going. From pompous pseudo-addresses to cheesy podium-mounted slogans, the show goes on.

Maybe it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a new level of chintz in the hackneyed, retail politics of the information age, right? And then, up in the sky, it’s a plane — no, two planes, flying barely 1,000 feet over New York City, within sight of Ground Zero: a Boeing VC-25, escorted by an F-16 fighter jet.

The jetliner was painted in the presidential colors, but ground witnesses would have been unable to tell. Buildings were evacuated, and onlookers ran for cover, fearing a terrorist attack was imminent. For nearly an hour, huge sections of the financial capital of the United States ceased to operate. Most hurt by this incident are survivors of the 9/11 attacks, many of whom still bear psychological wounds from their ordeals or the loss of family or friends. While they suffered no physical harm, many must have seen the shadow of one of the most painful days of their lives pass over them.

All this, for what? A mere photo shoot. A chance for the government to snap some pictures with the Statue of Liberty and the famous, beloved jet that often serves as Air Force One. For all their reputed self-absorptions and arrogance, neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush would have done something so obscenely self-indulgent. Only in the latest administration — one characterized by a “perpetual campaign mode” — would such an insane stunt be possible.

In fairness, it should be noted that Obama claims he had no advance knowledge of the mission. Still, it is quite clear that members of the president’s staff — people handpicked by the president — were behind the photo opportunity. Did it cross any of the White House’s political commissars that terrorizing half the population of New York to get some nice pictures just might be a bad idea? Or did they simply not care? The question was left to the Federal Aviation Administration, which sent out a useless classified memo.

This latest incident simply underscores the idiotic hubris of political entities engaging in populist imaging in the course of exercising their powers. The fact that the photo shoot had nothing to do with a policy proposal just makes this particular incident even more gratuitous.

The president has been trying to do damage control by apologizing for the flight and ordering an investigation, but he needs to understand that the root cause of last week’s events is not simple misjudgment on the part of one political hack. It arose from the obsession with style over substance generated by the administration’s inappropriate public-relations mentality. For once, Sen. Chuck Schumer is right when he said, “There was no need to scare thousands of New Yorkers who still have the vivid memory of 9/11.”

Reach columnist Russ Wung at opinion@dailyuw.com.