Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a very expensive photo op gone awry!

So after spending over $300,000 and scaring the bejeebers outta New York City, the Obama Administration would like to airbrush history.

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

"We have no plans to release them," an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

"The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

The photos have not technically been "classified," a White House aide said, but they are being kept from public view.

Just wait. Next week the press will be reporting the plane didn't really fly over New York City. It was a helicopter with Sarah Palin in it hunting a moose.

Can we have an honest conversation about the rights of a free press?

The Reverend Al Sharpton, a professional race hustler first made infamous in the Tawana Brawley hoax, is calling on the FCC to investigate News Corp because one of their newspapers dared run a political cartoon that he did not like.

Critics are still turning up the heat on the New York Post, directing their venom now at the embattled newspaper's parent company.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and several city councilmembers - riled up over purportedly racist cartoon - are asking the Federal Communications Commission to yank a waiver allowing News Corp. to run two newspapers and two TV stations in the city.

"You can stem protests because you own so much of the media. People can't question you," said Sharpton on his weekly radio show on KISS FM. "Advertisers are reluctant to pull out because you own so much of the media market."

Regardless of the content of the cartoon (it's relative demerits are debateable) the threat of government action to punish a media company for unpopular speech should invite universal condemnation. As for Sharpton, rather than ask for government intervention as punishment for being offensive, he should instead be thankful that KISS FM has the poor taste to give him air time and the freedom to do so.

(Ht: Sister Toldjah)

Don't teach your children

Think of Christopher Buckley's support for Barack Obama as preface to his new book about his parents, William F. Buckley Jr and his wife Pat. Christopher Buckley, the author of Thank You For Smoking, told the New York Post that some people might be unhappy with his new book.

"This book is going to land hard in some quarters . . . It's a book about two very complex people. They were not your typical mom and dad. This is not Ozzie and Harriet. They were William F. and Pat Buckley. The phrase 'larger than life' doesn't twice cover it."

Obama reads the newspaper endorsements

The New York Post, The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times all found themselves off the Obama campaign plane after their newspapers endorsed Senator John McCain.

The most fun you can have without a glass in your hand

Our friend the Asian Badger found this wonderful time-killer. Like Rock'em-Sock'em Robots, it's Clinton vs. Obama. It's fun to be a Republican.