Thursday, February 08, 2007

Just Asking ..

I have an uneasy feeling that the conservative press may have overhyped this story about Nancy Pelosi's airplane request. If she really and truly did ask for her own personal Boeing 757, as many stories and much radio commentary have implied , well yes obviously that would be a huge scandal. But I keep being struck by the exact phrase in these articles: that she asked for "access" to a a transcontinental plane. If she asked only that she get similar transport to that which was provided to Speaker Hastert, but with larger fuel capacity that could take her nonstop across the continent (ie, the military equivalent of a Gulfstream G-IV ), then that's a very different matter.

So which was it?

Truth is, nobody seems to know.

"It’s important we see what the specific request was,"

said Representative Adam Putnam, the number 3 Republican leader in the House.

Yes, I'll say it was important. It's always best to have the facts before you issue a judgment.

My own personal view, for what it's worth, is that the security protections for most US leaders - including the president - have by now vastly come to exceed what can be justified by any plausible cost-benefit analysis. Americans keep buying tiny additional increments of security for their leaders at ever more exorbitant marginal cost.

And I do suspect that politicians - Republicans as well as Democrats - exploit this security-mindedness for their own comfort and convenience. Does the Speaker of the House really and truly need to be in secure contact with the Capitol at all times? I wonder. And if the Speaker truly does need to be in constant contact, still - why does that require a plane that can fly cross-country without refueling? Does the communications equipment not work when the plane is on the ground?

But those are very different questions - and that's a very different topic - from the Marie Antoinette angle being played up yesterday and today on the basis of apparently inadequate information. A little caution in the reporting now may avoid considerable embarrassment later. Not to mention the small matter of basic fairness ...

02/08 10:19 AM