A thunderstorm darkened the sky west of Lone Ranger Ridge where our heros sat their horses. Lightning stabbed the sky and thunder rolled across the desert that moments before was hotter and drier than a buzzard’s belly. It was early summer but the high peaks still carried their winter blanket of snow. If you were very still and listened very carefully, you could just hear the strains of the “William Tell Overture” swelling in the far distance. Overhead, a small jet left a contrail in the empty spaces between the thunder clouds.
“Kemo Sabe,” said Tonto, “It is 1880. What’s a contrail?”
“That Tonto, is the trail of a jet airplane that will be invented in about 65 years. Until then, we’re stuck riding these horses, getting saddle sores. But, on the other hand, we can smell the wind blowing off that thunderstorm and the people on that airplane can’t.”
“There are people on that little tiny silver thing?”
C-20B Plane that Pelosi Used 19 Times in Two Years
“Yes. That is the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. She is third in line to be the President of the United States of America; just two heartbeats away from the most powerful job in the world.”
“She gets her own airplane?”
“Yep. One day in the far future America will be attacked by terrorists — Americans will call it ‘9-11′ — and right after the attack the President of the United States will decide that the Speaker of the House needs security and an Air Force plane to protect her. Before 9-11 Speakers flew commercial just like everybody else. After 9-11, the Speaker was a Republican named Hastert. He flew home every single weekend but nobody complained about him.”
“What’s an Air Force, Kemo Sabe?”
C-37A that Speaker Pelosi Used Once
“Never mind that Tonto. What’s important is what they are going to say about her on the internet. They are going to say that she flies home every weekend on a great big jet called a ‘757′ which carries 200 people and costs $60,000 just to fly it one-way from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco which is her home.”
“That’s a lot of money. What’s the ‘internet’, Lone Truther?”
The Lone Truther twisted in the saddle and said, “How should I know? It’s 1880. Anyway, what they say on the internet is wrong. Apparently lots of stuff on the internet is wrong but people believe it anyway. The plane the Air Force assigned the speaker is a Gulfstream III (C-20B) that seats 12 people, not 200. In the winter, sometimes it can’t fly all the way to California because of the Jet Stream and has to refuel.”
Our heroes began riding off the ridge, careful not to skyline themselves for this was the Old West and a man could get killed without even knowing it. Danger lurked behind every sagebrush bush. Only four years earlier Custer and his command had been wiped out.
The 757 She Never Flew Home
“What is worse Tonto, that email says that Pelosi flies home every weekend. But that was Hastert, not her. In all of 2007 and 2008 she only went home 20 times and 19 of those times she flew on the little C-20B. One time she flew on a slightly bigger C-37A, another Gulfstream that only holds 12 people but has a longer range. That’s it and yet they accuse her of being ‘Queen Nancy! She never took a 757 home. Not once.”
“Why don’t those people worry about something important, Kemo Sabe? Like that rattlesnake your horse ‘Sliver’ is about to step on.”
And with a hearty “Hi Ho Sliver, Away!” the Lone Truther rode off in a cloud of dust that could be seen by every bad guy in a hundred miles. Tonto just ambled along, listening to the music.
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Tags: Airplane, Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi's airplane, Speaker of the House
