Non-Stop

House Speaker Pelosi has requested a much larger plane then the previous House speaker had. The old speaker had a small commuter type jet that actually had to land once for refueling on trips cross country.

Not good enough for Pelosi, no fuel stops for her incredibly important self. She wanted the equivalent of a Boeing 757 to fly back to Califiornia in.

But, as things turn out:

A congressional source who read a letter to Pelosi signed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Wilkie said it essentially limits her to the commuter plane used by former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, which requires refueling to travel from Washington to Mrs. Pelosi's San Francisco district. A second source, in the Bush administration, confirmed the contents of the letter.

What a hell of a deal. The first woman House Speaker, and she can't score herself a type of aircraft usually used for backup of Air force One. I am going to cry all day.

Addendum:

Her esteemed highness says it's for "security reasons" that she wants a non-stop aircraft with a crew of eleven, costing $10,000 an hour... just for fuel. And forget the fact that those planes will produce several tons of CO2 gasses per flight., something Pelosi promised she would do everything in her power to fight... the creation of those gasses.

Turns out there are at least eight Air force bases that the Speaker's plane could land and refuel at. They have such high security that her landing there could present a security problem for the bases, since her security rating is far from perfect.