Why Lefty Bloggers Should Always Get to Fly First Class

As I’ve explained before, I used to consult for a big automotive company, working primarily in Asia (the job got moved to Asia earlier this year). I flew several times a year to Asia. So for the past several years, I’ve been an "Elite Level" flyer for Northwest. Which means I get bumped up to First Class pretty consistently.

Back in February, during my first trip home from the Libby trial, I ran into an attractive (in a frat boy way) but too-heavy man sitting across the aisle from me in First Class. He seemed to be as interested that I was reading Lawrence Walsh’s Firewall (on Iran-Contra) as I was in reading his folders full of "articles from Staffers" on "Islamists." It was even more fun when I got out my computer and started doing a blog post on the trial. After all, Mike Rogers (whom I lated recognized this to be) had been challenged in ’06 by Jim Marcinkowski, one of Valerie Wilson’s friends from her CIA cohort.

It happened again, today. I was sitting in the first row of the plane. The nice gentlemanly man on the aisle was already there–I ended up shoving his briefcase to the side so I could fit my bloggy laptop-sack next to his Congressional bag. He said he wanted to get to his bag during the flight, so we rearranged nicely. And then I sat down. As the other passengers came in, I heard someone say "hi" to the Congressman. At which point I started kicking myself for not knowing the Republican Congressman from MI by face (apparently, only the Republicans are still taking 2.5 day weeks–I’ve only ever seen Mrs. Dingell in my middle-of-the-week flights, not any Democratic Congressmen). The Congressman got pretty attentive to what I was doing (and today, I actually looked like a DFH blogger), particularly once I pulled out The Wrong Stuff–the book on Duke Cunningham I’m hosting FDL book salon for on Sunday. Luckily, the flight attendant was very superb at his job, and he called us both by name as he asked us for our drink orders (I had white wine, and "Mr. Knollenberg" had a half-glass of water, no ice.), so I could figure out who I was sitting next to. Meanwhile, I think Knollenberg decided not to pull out his KoolAid Republican work to review on the flight. While he may already know everything bad about Duke Cunningham, his former colleague, I’m sure we don’t know everything about Joe Knollenberg.

Anyway, sorry for the completely random post. If you care, Knollenberg likes peanuts, but not pretzels or chips. And he doesn’t like to drink a lot of water on plane rides. And he’s kind of fussy about little pieces of trash floating around in his space–though that may have been exacerbated by the fact that he had to sit next to a DFH blogger reading (and taking extensive notes) a book on Republican corruption. Though I should say, he was very polite (as was Mike Rogers) and pulled my bag down from the overhead.

I’m sure I was having a lot more fun with the experience than he was, anyway. There’s something to be said for making a Republican Congressman’s flight back to DC a little more stressful by attentively studying Republican corruption while sitting right next to him in First Class.

[Editorial note: this was blogged using Jane’s new network card, which means we should be liveblogging in real time from the Conyers hearing tomorrow.]