Hubbub over Pelosi plane escalates

WASHINGTON -- The Pelosi plane commotion continued yesterday with the nation's capital in a partisan fizz.

On a day when the federal deficit and the Iraq war were the official business, Washington found itself caught up again in the question of whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should fly home to San Francisco in a big plane or a little one.

Security rules permit the speaker -- second in line to the presidency -- occasional use of a military passenger jet. Republican J. Dennis Hastert used one when he was speaker to commute to his Illinois district, but the one he used can go to California without stopping to refuel in only good flying conditions. Pelosi wants to fly nonstop, which means a bigger plane.

Critics have assailed her request, saying she wants the bigger plane solely so she can have parties at 30,000 feet with her family and supporters.

Yesterday, Pelosi announced at a news conference that she would fly commercial if the military could not provide a plane with a cross-country-size fuel tank. Pentagon officials, after weeks of deliberation, have offered her the same kind of plane Hastert used, but said she could have a larger one if it happened to be available.

"I am happy to ride commercial coast to coast," Pelosi said as she went on to suggest that she was being denied the same privileges provided her predecessor. "I'm not saying that I am being discriminated against because I am a woman. I'm just saying as the first woman speaker, I have no intention of having less respect for the office I hold than all of the other speakers that have come before me."

She sniped at Republicans who have spent the past several days accusing her of excess, saying they "have nothing to say to the American people about the war, the economy, global warming, and the rest. So they have this game they're playing."

She then suggested that the Defense Department had deliberately mischaracterized her request for clarification of the rules on the use of military jets as a request for a big plane.

She questioned whether it was in retaliation for her criticism that former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mishandled the war.

On the House floor, Republicans managed to take a bill about alternative fuel and turn it into a debate on Pelosi's transportation arrangements by introducing an amendment that included the word "aircraft."

That gave conservative members an opportunity to characterize her as the Leona Helmsley of Capitol Hill.

White House press secretary Tony Snow defended Pelosi, calling the hubbub "silly."