Aplus,read the last paragraph......next time at least tell the whole story.....
February 8, 2007, 5:14 pm
‘Pelosi One’
By Carl Hulse
It is quite a ways from Washington to San Francisco by air but evidently nowhere near the size of the divide separating House Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the travel arrangements of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Image from a National Republican Congressional Committee press release criticizing Mrs. Pelosi.Republicans, accusing Ms. Pelosi of adopting royal airs, on Thursday stepped up their campaign to portray her as “non-stop Nancy,” a luxury-loving San Franciscan, because her cross-country travel could require a larger military jet than that used to ferry former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert back and forth to his home in Illinois since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ms. Pelosi and her fellow Democrats responded that security officials of the House had advised her to travel in a government plane and that if she had her way, she would go commercial. They suggested Republicans were hypocritical, scheming sexists who were trying to deny the new speaker the same protection afforded her male predecessor.
Things took flight from there in a House debate that impugned the speaker’s love of chocolate, aired views on the hazards of missed connections and middle seats, and considered whether Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama would draw bigger crowds in an airport.
The White House weighed in as well. “This is a silly story,” said its spokesman, Tony Snow, saying his party’s criticism of Ms. Pelosi has been unfair and that the administration essentially sided with her. The Pentagon in a letter to Mrs. Pelosi, dated Wednesday, said that it would provide shuttle support between her home district and Washington. “While every effort will always be made to provide nonstop shuttle support, such support is subject to aircraft type and availability and therefore may not always be guaranteed,” the letter said.
But the lift the story is getting illustrated that politicians are acutely aware that a jet-setting image can be dangerous; particularly given the travails of modern travel for average Americans. It took President Clinton a long time to live down the tale of whether his on-board haircut delayed other flights stacked up on the runway at Los Angeles airport. And the picture of Newt Gingrich complaining about his rear-exit departure from Air Force One did not help his image as a petulant pol.
Bill Livingood, sergeant-at-arms, said in a statement that the practice began with Mr. Hastert, and that he requested that Mrs. Pelosi receive similar security travel arrangements, and that he was the one who asked for her travel to be on nonstop flights. “I regret that an issue that is exclusively considered and decided in a security context has evolved into a political issue,'’ Mr. Livingood said.