The Pop Culture Travel Guide

Pelosi Plane Compromise

2/09/2007 at 3:31 PM
Tags: , , (all tags)


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been accused of requesting an Air Force C-32 so she could fly home to California without refueling.

In typical blame game bipartisan DC fashion:

·Democrats say Pelosi never asked for anything, Bill Livingood, the House sergeant at arms actually asked for her to have a larger non-stop plane.

·Republicans say Pelosi requested a non-stop, larger than life Air Force C-32 to take her, her entire staff, family, and pretty much anyone in the Pelosi posse back to Cali whenever she pleases.

From a plebeian travel perspective, no one likes to stop in Denver en route to San Francisco, so we get that. However, having the luxury of bringing along everyone you hang with? We are fairly sure even Jay Z had to give up that luxury long ago.

By no means are we politicos, but here we will humbly offer up a travel compromise--Pelosi gets to fly non-stop to California as often as she needs to, on whatever plane is available, and her posse has to pay and is limited to an easily agreeable number of people (maybe 3 guests per flight?)

Cool? Otherwise, just buy her a JetBlue gift card and tell her to get online and book a bunch of direct flights from IAD to OAK, much like the rest of us would have to do.

[Photo: Matt Cawby]

Related Stories:
· JetBlue coverage [Jaunted]
· Pelosi Plane [CNN]


3 Comments - Add Yours by markj

Add YoursComments


mconsonni
Jaunted Member
Who cares... (none / 0)

Almost 20 Billion unaccounted for dollars in Iraq, Rumsfeld still has a desk and a staff at the Pentagon, and we can't give the speaker of the house a plane. And dammit if the plane is that big I would think it would be better spent to have as many passengers on it as possible.

Give me a break.

by mconsonni on 2/09/2007 at 4:23 PM



zg1
Jaunted Member
Pelosi's travel arrangements (none / 0)

Even NPR covered this yesterday....
Certain levels of security are required for the 2nd in line for the presidency (after the VP) and their entourage is of a certain size.  Beyond that, many Speakers in the past have chartered aircraft to fly home.  It just so happens that Hastert was only flying home to CHICAGO.  Not hard to go non-stop that far.  For Pelosi to request to be able to fly non-stop to her constituency is not unreasonable, it just happens to be on the other side of the country and it takes a larger plane - with larger fuel tanks- to make the trip.  If you pile a couple more people in it besides, it makes no difference.

She even said if the proper plane is unavailable through the government, she'd fly - with her security people - commercially, non-stop of course.

At least get the whole story.

by zg1 on 2/09/2007 at 5:22 PM



carl789
Jaunted Member
Not politicos? (none / 0)

FYI:

"Democrats say Pelosi never asked for anything, Bill Livingood, the House sergeant at arms actually asked for her to have a larger non-stop plane."

Democrats didn't say that, Bill Livingood said it himself.  See the story on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/09/pelosi.plane/

You're trying to spin this as democratic vs republican, but really it's just the republicans making this story up.

You show your bias by then taking the republican smear as fact by saying:

"However, having the luxury of bringing along everyone you hang with? We are fairly sure even Jay Z had to give up that luxury long ago."

I say you are more politicos than you think.

by carl789 on 2/09/2007 at 6:03 PM


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