Pelosi Falls Victim to Freshman Prank

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was confirmed this week as a newbie House Speaker after allowing her self to unwittingly become embroiled in a controversy over the use of government assets.   Pelosi like many of her House Speaker predecessors allowed herself to be ensnared with one of the oldest tricks in the book.  She forgot that the power she wields is powerful and subject to abuse or misuse.

As the House Speaker and third in line to the Presidency, like Former Speaker and Former President Gerald Ford, Pelosi is entitled to military flights for her own protection.  And as such a non-stop flight from DC to San Francisco, her home, would be safer, just as her most recent predecessor Dennis Hastert flew straight through to Illinois.

That is not really at question in this case.  The problem is that she allowed herself to be put in a position where it looks like she is asking for a bigger plane without clarifying and qualifying the request and pushing it through a bipartisan committee to ensure that it would not be seen as abusive.  Similarly, she failed to insure that her quick request was not acted upon without thought to these same issues.  As the House Speaker she does have a level of power that will make some people jump when she makes the order.

So now Republicans have dragged her request through the mud as it looks like in retrospect that she was requesting an extremely expensive plane equivalent to Air Force 2 as opposed to the smaller plane previously used by Hastert, that is actually capable of making a non-stop flight to San Francisco, but might or might not be capable of having to circle or divert a long distance under odd circumstances, say like the death or ailment of both the President and the Vice President.  The plane could make the flight across the country, but could it divert when it made it San Francisco and fly half way back across the country to a safe destination in the advent of some strange attack? 

Probably not, but regardless she allowed herself to be suckered into this attack and she is suffering from it.  Maybe this will serve as a reminder her to her that she's in the number three seat now and politics are much uglier at that level for everyone involved.

Technorati tags: Nancy Pelosi, Scandal, Air Force 2, House Speaker, Presidential Succession Scenarios