John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi -- This is How We Fly

John Boehner announced today that if selected has House Speaker, he will fly between Washington, D.C. and his district, Ohio, by commercial aircraft. There are several issues with this that come to mind as Republicans and Tea Partiers cheer this move that makes you wonder how deeply this decision has been considered.

Firstly, this really offers little in the way of significant or even insignificant savings to the American people. In a time where we need serious solutions, the first solution offered by the man soon to lead the House of Representatives is to cut something that will make no difference. Is it really a slap in the face to the "liberal agenda" that so many have been led to believe is bringing this country down rather than the petty politics like this. But petty politics and insignificant savings aren't the reason I'm really shocked by this.

The Speaker of the House, whether it be Boehner, Pelosi or anyone else is 2 heartbeats from the Oval Office. They are a potential target and Boehner, as a potential target, wants to fly on the most lucrative terrorist transit for decades - a commercial airliner. And the best reason for him to do this is political one-upmanship.

We just days ago had commercial flights grounded around the world, escorted planes in from Canada that had cargo and landed any commercial or cargo flight in the US that may have been carrying transferred cargo coming from the middle east.

Let's visit why the Speaker of the House has been flying on military/government planes. In 2011, 4 planes were hijacked. One flew into the Pentagon, one flew into the South Tower at the World Trade Center, one flew into the North Tower at the World Trade Center and one crashed in Pennsylvania. After this day, George W. Bush ordered that the Speaker of the House, 3rd person from the Oval Office, be afforded access to military aircraft to travel in order to secure the upper key positions of Presidential succession.

This decision by President Bush was further advanced when the "Shoe Bomber," Richard Reid, attempted to set off a bomb on American Airlines flight 63, just weeks later in December. More recently, in 2009 we had the "Underwear Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, who tried to ignite a bomb on a commercial flight during the Christmas rush.

I am no fan of Mr. Boehner, but I have a great respect for the structure of my government and I do believe in intelligent national security practices. In light of the many attempts to hijack or blow up planes over the decades, the continued threat to this day, the last place the 3^rd person should be is on a commercial airliner. The need to provide security to the government structure should supersede Mr. Boehner's need to strike another rhetorical political blow. It's time to put partisanship aside and take the role of government, be it spending or security seriously and not simply as political leverage in the arena.