EDMUND BURKEI’m annoyed by a front-page article in today’s Washington Post.
The article is titled “Panetta says he regrets cost of his flights home.” The first sentence reads: “Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Monday that he regrets that his frequent flights home to California on a military jet have cost taxpayers more than $800,000 since July.”
What bothers me about the article? That the Post placed it on page one – above the fold on the right-hand side of the paper to boot – suggesting it’s one of the most important articles in today’s paper.
The reader who follows the article to the jump page learns that under government rules: (1) Panetta, as defense secretary, is required to fly exclusively on military aircraft equipped with secure communications links to the Pentagon and the White House, and (2) when he flies for personal reasons he is required to reimburse the government for what it would cost to fly on a commercial airline – which he has done. (Those rules, incidentally, were adopted under the prior administration.)
On weekends, Panetta frequently flies home to California, where his wife and family live. He has followed the same routine during his forty years in government. When he was a member of Congress, he paid for flights home himself. Over the past eight months, Panetta has made 27 trips home, and reimbursed the government $17,000.
Has Panetta done anything wrong? No, he has not. But while the words in the article do not suggest otherwise, its placement suggests that the Post is reporting on a scandal of some sort.
I have no doubt that the cost of Panetta’s security detail well exceeds costs of his flights home, but the Post is unlikely to place an article about that above-the-fold on A1. If it did, readers would find the placement jarring. We know that taxpayers pay considerable sums to protect, not only the president and vice president, but cabinet secretaries as well. Of course, these individuals personally benefit by the protection; but that’s not why taxpayers foot the bill. The nation benefits by protecting cabinet secretaries.
The regulations requiring the secretary of defense to travel on military aircraft with secure communications also benefit the nation. I, for one, don’t want the defense secretary out of touch during a three-hour flight when a military crisis – an unexpected missile launch from a hostile nation, a foreign submarine detected in U.S. waters, a coup in Pakistan – suddenly arises.
I also find Panetta’s reaction entirely appropriate: He regrets the cost to taxpayers. Yes, the cost is unfortunate, but it’s better than the alternatives. He’s entitled to weekends at home with his family – indeed, citizens should want Panetta to spend weekends at home with his family because with this personal sustenance he’ll perform better in his job – and the costs are what they are.
I’m not suggesting that the article should not have been published elsewhere in the paper. Taxpayers know that they pay a lot for Secret Service and other security force protection for high government officials. I don’t know how much those security costs run, and I might find that interesting, especially if the protection is arguably too much or too little. I didn’t know that we are paying for Leon Panetta’s trips home – so arguably there may be some newsworthiness to the story – though now I know, I don’t care. To my mind, Panetta’s trips home and the regulations relating to his mode of travel and reimbursement rate are appropriate.
Maybe a few souls – I doubt it will be many – will believe that rather than fly home to his family, Panetta should effectively be imprisoned in Washington, or that his family should have moved to Washington, or that he should not have accepted the job. That’s why the article may have merited a spot on, say, page A13.
But I think most readers will find the article a yawn. Except for the editors’ decision on placement, that is.