How wrong was Putz on Pelosi?

After Tony Snow, the House Sergeant at Arms has officially declared the whole Pelosi/plane story bogus.

Also today, House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood released a new statement emphasizing that it was he — not Pelosi — who requested she use an aircraft capable of flying non-stop to her district in California to “ensure communications capabilities and also enhance security.”

In a post 9/11 threat environment, it is reasonable and prudent to provide military aircraft to the Speaker for official travel between Washington and her district. … The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable. This will ensure communications capabilities and also enhance security. … I regret that an issue that is exclusively considered and decided in a security context has evolved into a political issue.

Putz's first mistake: reading the Moonie Times. His second mistake: leaping like a drooling rabid bat* at a fake story in the Moonie Times.

A sample of the damage:

Well, she is third in the line of succession, but you don't need an entourage for that. Dennis Hastert used a commuter-sized jet.

A reader recommends the C-20, an Air Force variant of the Gulfstream III. "It has the range for non stop San Fran to DC, and is faster than a big jet on less fuel." Looks nice to me, though it does produce something like 10,000 lbs of C0₂ per hour. Still, that's a lot less than the jet that Pelosi actually wants, I guess.

Fill the Gulfstream up with people who actually need to travel, of course, and you're doing about as well as the commercial airliner in terms of efficiency, which is why I'm okay on that, but when you get to the bigger planes you're clearly way, way behind -- and if you fill them up with cronies and campaign contributors just because you've got extra seats, you aren't really making things better.

Hastert had a commuter jet. Pelosi wants a bigger one, partly for nonstop range and partly to accommodate an "entourage."

Pelosi seems to want to establish herself as a sort of Junior President. This seems unwise to me, and it's certainly bad for Hillary -- why vote for the first woman President if we've already got one?

Demanding nonstop service seems a bit much. That's certainly hard for the rest of us to get, in this hub-and-spoke era. And the C-20 above seems to have the range she wants, it's just not as big as a large commercial airliner -- and, really, why should it be?

Sigh. All that -- and calling John Murtha "thuggish" to boot.

Putz, you really should lay off the Moonie Times. It'll just cause you more embarrassment, if you're actually still physically capable of it, in the future. When you want to bash Democrats, you're better off sticking with the vague, unsubstantiated treason charges.

*$1 to Greenwald.