Strafing the Speaker

This Air Pelosi story is gaining altitude.

Conservative blogs and radio talkers are having a grand time painting her as a pampered princess.

The Washington Times broke what seemed a legitimate story: The Pentagon has limited the size of the military planes that the House speaker can use to fly home to California.

Did you know she was entitled to a military plane? Neither did I. But under legislation passed after 9/11, it's legally mandated for security reasons. Dennis Hastert had such special transport for five years.

Nancy Pelosi asked for a bigger (and far more expensive) plane because the one she was using couldn't make it to the West Coast without a refueling stop. Hastert didn't have that problem getting to Illinois.

Pelosi may be right on the substance, but the symbolism is awful. She insists she didn't ask for the plane, but if a military flight is needed, she wants a nonstop to San Francisco. The average voter will be left wth an image of her flying around on a jumbo jet in the lap of luxury.

The Times also reported that the Defense Department rejected a request for Pelosi to fly on military aircraft to last weekend's Democratic retreat in Williamsburg, a two-hour drive from D.C.

Pelosi has gone on the offensive, saying that Pentagon officials leaked the dispute for partisan reasons and that the negotiating was done not by her but by the House sergeant-at-arms. The flap made the network newscasts last night, although Tony Snow pointedly declined to pile on, calling the story "silly."

The L.A. Times frames it this way: "The Pelosi plane commotion continued Thursday with the nation's capital in a partisan fizz.

"On a day when the federal deficit and the Iraq war were the official business, Washington found itself caught up again in the question of whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should fly home to San Francisco in a big plane or a little one."

Pelosi "suggested the Defense Department had deliberately mischaracterized her request for clarification of the rules on the use of military jets as a request for a big plane. 'Why are they feeding the flames?' she asked. She offered an answer: payback for her vocal criticism that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mishandled the Iraq war.

"On the House floor, Republicans managed to take a bill about alternative fuel and turn it into a debate on Pelosi's transportation arrangements, by introducing an amendment that included the word 'aircraft.' That was enough to provide conservative members an opportunity to characterize her as the Leona Helmsley of Capitol Hill."