Holy I Never Would Have Believed It, Batman!

More Republicans With A Conscience?

Signs of sanity, after all? And here I thought this was all just a blood sport, if you will...

The White House on Thursday defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against Republican criticism that her desire to fly in an Air Force transport plane is an extravagance.

"This is a silly story and I think it's been unfair to the speaker," White House spokesman Tony Snow said...

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Pentagon agreed to provide the House speaker, who is second in the line of presidential succession, with a military plane for added security during trips back home. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, flew in a small commuter-sized Air Force jet.

Pelosi said she would be happy to fly on commercial airliners but said the House sergeant-at-arms office urged her to continue Hastert's practice of using Air Force transport. She said she was informed on her first trip home that her plane would not make it across the country.

"I said well, that's fine, I'm going commercial," she told Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren. "I'm not asking to go on that plane. If you need to take me there for security purposes, you're going to have to get a plane that goes across the country, because I'm going home to my family."

Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 Republican leader, called Pelosi's desire for a large transport plane "an extravagance of power that the taxpayers won't swallow..."

But Snow on Thursday said the negotiations over Pelosi's transport have been conducted solely by the House sergeant-at-arms and the Pentagon, with no direct involvement by the speaker or her office--or the White House.