FOX News' Pelosi Airplane Smear Crashes And Burns
Reported by Ellen - March 12, 2009 -
You could hardly look at FOX News last night (3/11/09) without seeing either a discussion or a chyron hyping their accusation that Nancy Pelosi made “unprecedented demands” for a military aircraft to fly her back and forth from Washington to her district. Bill O'Reilly could barely conceal his glee, as seen in the discussion with Dennis Miller (video after the jump or here) in which Miller "joked," “The worst thing about lending Pelosi an aircraft is it always comes back with an eye job on the cockpit, where the window shields are pulled up at a really unnatural, disturbing mark. That's the worst part of lending her a jet. And the fact that somebody thinks this empty-headed Pashmina mannequin has to be guarded from people will show you how absolutely made the world has gone.” Sean Hannity brought it up last night (see video below) and the night before on his program, too. But ABC News has not only debunked this story as “unproven,” its investigation revealed that Pelosi has taken fewer trips on the jet than her predecessor Republican Dennis Hastert. Wanna bet that will be the end of this “controversy?” With video.
It's funny how FOX News has developed a sudden sensitivity to waste in Washington. I don't recall a single discussion about allegations of war-profiteering by Halliburton, for example. And yet, now that there's a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president, FOX News keeps flying the Pelosi plane “controversy,” even when it's manufactured.
When Kirsten Powers, on Hannity's "Great American Panel," correctly pointed out that it was the Defense Department that arranged for her to travel in a military aircraft, Hannity dismissed that by saying, "forget about the excuses."
But now that ABC News has reported, “It appears that Pelosi uses military aircraft less often than her predecessor, former Speaker of the House (Republican) Dennis Hastert," it's a pretty safe bet that FOX News' interest in excessive use of military aircraft by the Speaker will disappear.
I suspect that's why this story, so prominent earlier in the evening, can not now be found on FOXNews.com's current home page.
