GOP Rep. Who Pushed Pelosi Plane Story Admits He Didn't Know -- Or Care -- If It Was True
February 20, 2007 -- 2:26 PM EST // //
The bogus Pelosi plane story has already been killed off multiple times and is at this point nothing more than a piece of journalistic roadkill. Still, you won't want to miss this one -- because it provides a backstage look at the extraordinary dishonesty that drove this whole non-story from the very beginning.
Today's Tampa Tribue is carrying a profile of one of the key drivers of this tale: Florida GOP Rep. Adam Putnam. As chairman of the House Republican conference committee, Putnam plays a key role in pushing the GOP's message in the media, and he aggressively pushed the plane story from the start. But now he's cheerfully admitted to the Tribune that not only did he have no idea whether the plane story was true, he didn't particularly care, either.
From the Tribune story by reporter Billy Townsend:
Putnam, the third-ranking House Republican, had pushed the Pelosi story aggressively the day before, both in print and on television."This is not about having secure communications and secure aircraft available to her. It's about an arrogance of extravagance that demands a jumbo jet that costs $22,000 an hour to operate to taxi her and her buddies back and forth to California," Putnam told Fox News.
It turns out there's no evidence Pelosi requested any such thing. A day after Snow's remarks, the nonpartisan House sergeant-at-arms released a written statement explaining that for security reasons he asked for a plane that could carry Pelosi nonstop to her home in San Francisco, a much longer distance than former Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, had to cover.
Putnam now acknowledges he had no personal knowledge of any Pelosi request. He said he was commenting on an anonymously-sourced story in The Washington Times and additional coverage from CNN.
"This was a classic case where the media got out in front of us," Putnam said. "Did we jump on it? Yes."
And he is unapologetic about that. He calls the Pelosi plane story, whatever its legitimacy, "the first break [Republicans] have had from the media in driving our message since before the Mark Foley story broke."
And these days, as chairman of the House Republican conference committee, it is in Putnam's congressional job description to care intensely about that.
I'm not sure it gets any clearer than that. Putnam had no idea whether the story was true or not. Yet based on an anonymously sourced Washington Times story (and allegedly based on CNN, though what exactly CNN had added to the story at that point is unclear), he happily attacked Pelosi for "arrogance" and "extravagance." More important, he is still "unapologetic" about the fact that the story turned out to be false, because, well, it's not his job to care about such things. It's his job to "drive" the GOP's "message."
Look, of course Putnam is going to lie. But what of the media? This story was all over the airwaves and newspapers for days and days and days -- even well after it had been discredited. Can we all agree that this sort of occurrence is a bad thing for journalism, for politics, and for the state of our discourse? Can we all agree that it would be desirable to avoid this sort of thing? Agreed?
I think I hear a few cries of "yes" out there somewhere. So now that we know that one of the officials who's key to driving the GOP message in the media couldn't care less whether what he's saying is true or not, you'd think that we'll be seeing a bit more media skepticism the next time a similar GOP attack is launched from the same quarters. You'd think. Wouldn't you?
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