Pelosi's Plane

Well other folks have been covering this bamboozle (Josh Marshall's term for it, and correct in my opinion). See Josh Marshall (search throughout for stories on the Pelosi plane flap. Josh has done a number of posts on the issue) for the straight dope on it and see this post by Mark Kleiman for the sarcastic approach. This really is a bamboozle as Josh puts it. The Republican outrage is based entirely upon stuff made up by Republicans and easily refuted by minimal research. If this stuff really makes them mad, they should stop making it up.

Consider this statement from the House Sergeant at Arms that it he, not the Speaker, requested the larger plane, and did so out of security concerns. He issued that statement on February 8, but is it really the case that none of those who are speaking out against Speaker Pelosi thought to ask the Sergeant at Arms first before speaking out. If so, that only reflects badly on the character and intelligence of those speaking out. Then there is this statement by Madam Speaker herself which destroys the rest of the complaints by the complainers. One of the complaints raised the whiners is that if this larger more expensive plane is needed to fly cross country then she should just fly commercial. Of course, her response has been, since day one, "I'm going commercial".

As an additional note, are we all supposed to believe that the Republican leadership is really so lacking in brainpower that it didn't occur to them that given the security concerns, stopping the plan to refuel is not a good idea. I'm not an expert in this field, but I'm pretty sure that stopping to refuel makes the security a lot harder.

But for the good news on this issue and on the general hope that Democrats will fight back, it would appear that there will be hearings in the House on both Congressional and Executive use of military planes. Jack Murtha has requested that the Pentagon turn over records of such travel, covering the past two years, and to turn it over within a month. So this will look into how Hatart used his plane and the use of these planes by Cabinet level appointees, which is allowed under the law. After all the flap about Speaker Pelosi, abuses found in those areas should be entertaining.