Posted by
Concerned Citizen, Mike Grant on Thursday, February 08, 2007 3:20:00 PM
Bit of a brou hah hah on Capitol Hill today. Apparently Nancy Pelosi wants a military grade transport plane for various reasons. These reasons include security concerns, the ability to fly coast to coast without refueling, and its size. (And I always thought that it wasn't the size that mattered?) I will address these points one at a time. As we know if Bush and Cheney would drop dead before 2008, Pelosi would be the president (oh God!) so the security concern is a valid one. However, former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert made do with a smaller, commercial airline, so why can't Pelosi? Ohhh, that's right! Pelosi, as the first female Speaker of the House (lest we forget for even a second), is now a national treasure and is of equal rank to the President! Second point, my heart bleeds that Pelosi has to be "inconvenienced" by stopping on her cross country flight, which of course is on our dime. Welcome to the real world! Third point, this military C-32 transport plane is the equivalent of a civilian Boeing 757-200, which is used as Air Force Two to transport the Vice-President, First Lady, members of the Cabinet and Congress, and staff around the country and the world. Pelosi is asking for this plane all to herself. Apparently, she wants her own entourage and she also needs space for her sizeable ego.
I think this quote come a DoD official is very telling and validates my above points, "She's effectively taking a bird out of the fleet...It will most directly impact the House...they're the heavy users of the large aircraft...Congress looks at that Andrews fleet as their Hertz rent-a-car."
More from the Washington Times article, "The congressional source said the speaker's office requested an Air Force plane to take her to a weekend Democratic retreat in Williamsburg, but the Pentagon declined." What crap is this?! Pelosi can't drive from Washington to Williamsburg, Virginia?! WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD OF EVERDAY PEOPLE! WE HAVE TO DRIVE TO WORK, SO SHOULD YOU! But the White House is giving in since Murtha backs Pelosi and Murtha has a lot of control over defense spending. Crazy stuff man, crazy stuff.
Mike Grant