Given last week's dire predictions, has your holiday travel turned out so uneventful, that even Benizar Bhutto is suggesting you need to get out more?
Long for the good old days when you could count on flight delays, missed connections, and other war stories? Well perhaps you've forgotten that exactly one year ago, the Bush family set that pie just a little bit higher with travel gone awry on visits to Hawaii and the Argentine.
But now, thanks to the little known Freedom From Information Act, dKos is able to provide illuminating details from the written transcript of one of those sordid dream vacation incidents.
Yes, of course it’s a low blow at an unfortunate fellow’s expense. But if dKos readers could find amusement in a lawyer unintentionally shot in the face on a quail hunt, surely this too is grist for the old mill during a sitcom writer’s strike. At least that’s the spin we’re going with.
OK fellow travelers (you should pardon the expression), admit it. You’re just a tad disappointed this year’s Thanksgiving holiday travel hasn’t turned into the predicted traditional horror show of missed and delayed flights, long security lines, and unforeseen TSA hassles. Lost luggage, on its way to Tortola for a better vacation than you're having? Crying babies, intractable flight attendants? Those airport sleepovers, that, if nothing else, give you something -- anything -- to talk about with the inlaws? Be honest, you braced for it.
And the other shoe never dropped despite the direst predictions. What the hell are we going to do with all that extra adrenaline? Tell the truth, you're one of those folks who actually almost enjoys getting wanded. Or at least not having to pay extra for that. Wednesday morning, the Weather Channel predicts a travel nightmare with rain and/or snow covering "a large swath of the country" on “one of the busiest travel days of the year.” Well, even if you happen to be a weather wonk who actually knows what constitutes enough of America to qualify as a swath, apparently you personally don’t live in one. The family just zipped on through.
Simultaneously, Bloomberg.com predicts the “mix of rain, snow and ice threaten to delay flights in Chicago and Detroit.” But Metro Detroit Airport reports three-quarters of its flights arriving and departing on time. Wouldn’t you know it. Sitting in the front three-quarters of that MD-80, you and the family are not inconvenienced in the least.
Remember how you thought you’d get around that 3 oz. limit for carry-on liquid by smuggling a full liter of contraband diet Pepsi, in your bladder. Only to remain on the tarmac 7.5 hours with overflowing toilets as a Jet Blue hostage -- allegedly attributable to icing conditions in a hub you didn’t even know they had half way around the world in Moldova? So, to be technical, there were two ripple effects.
What happens this year? Eliot Spitzer or somebody comes up with a Passengers Bill of Rights. Say you’ve boarded a connecting flight at LaGuardia, and now you’re stuck out on the taxiway for a mere 2 hours. You are not only awarded a free roll of toilet paper, but now the plane is reclassified as a residence. You get to vote in the next New York election for – Eliot Spitzer. What airline exec. wants to be held accountable for that? United, thy middle name is punctuality.
Air traffic congestion? President frees up two “express lanes” of military airspace. What surprises you more? That these may have actually helped a little? Or that both lanes didn’t end for you in Bagram? And we have the last laugh. With the re-designation as "express lanes," Saudi royalty must limit themselves to only twelve pieces of luggage or less.
Hard to find a downside to anything. Takeoff slightly delayed due to fog and drizzle at LAX? Well, maybe, just maybe, that's why the airport is not ON FIRE like just a few miles up the coast? Yes we know for some Malibu on fire may be preferable to Inglewood moist -- but. people, we're talking aviation fuel here.
Rainy weather delays some incoming flights more than two hours at Hartsfield-Jackson, one of the nation's busiest airports? Uh, yeh, duh, but it's finally raining in tinder-dry Atlanta.
Everything almost couldn't have gone better. You remembered not to wrap the gifts. Unlike last year, you weren't sandwiched between sweaty endomorphs A and C. The inebriated gentleman who traditionally goes nuts with the beverage cart graduated anger management cum laude. For the first time in eleven years everybody gathered around the luggage carousel realizes it hadn't necessarily been such a great travel tip to tag their identical black carry-ons with equally identical strands of red yarn.
On closer inspection, that isn’tno-fly list stalwart Cat Stevens squeezing a guitar into the overhead compartment four rows up. Heck, you even found something in the Skymall Magazine that, under certain ideal conditions, could constitute a basic necessity of life.
Sure the outbound in-flight feature was Evan Almighty, and the airline magazine forewarned Transformers on the return. But if you’ll remember, last Thanksgiving, by computer error you and fellow passengers in coach were treated to Snakes on a Plane. By the time they had landed, 21 male passengers had to see a urologist for a reptile dysfunction.
You of the college set, miss those overnight sojourns at O’Hare? Huddled together for warmth with Zac Efron lookalikes, or fresh faced nubile sophomores in their LL Bean finery; all of you somehow coping as best you can with the prospect of not arriving in time for class Monday morning?
OK say things hadn’t gone so smoothly. Say you're in security for an hour and a half, because, for some odd reason, 14 of the 37 guys with beards in front of you have also inexplicably elected to adopt the hijab as a fashion statement? What's the holdup? Can't get out of Dulles -- or can't get into Iran? Either way,with gasoline at a contra-seasonal all-time high of $3.29 for regular, you're still better off than opting for the 700-mile SUV excursion to grandma’s. Thank big oil for the friendliest skies in recent years.
Caught midway in our New England road trip, my wife and I had decided to sit out the imminent storm, in Woodstock, Vermont, on the road to Rutand from Queechee State Park, warm and cozy at the wonderful Bardwell Family Inn B&B. Since we had already driven up, attempting to leaf peep what remained of the spectacular fall foliage after an early Thanksgiving in Boston, what was the point of taking any chances venturing out into the impending dreaded tempest? “The bridge ees out, eet loooooks like you will have to spend the night ----- hhhaaahhhahhahhha.”
But of course, in that part of Vermont, the bridges are hardly ever out -- because so many of them are covered. Having gone through four of them crossing back and forth over the Ottauqueechee River alone -- The Lincoln, the Taftsville, the Middle, and eponymous Ottauquechee River bridges -- we kind of surmised, the folks up there really knew how to handle bad weather.
Having thoroughly parsed the reviews, we had been unsurprised by our truly lovely, spacious upstairs accommodations at the Bardwell's, nor the gourmet breakfast. (You know those chain motels where one of the alleged perks is the opportunity to “make your own waffles” at the breakfast buffet? Well, I’ve always considered that roughly equivalent to those home-cooking restaurants, where the slogan ought to be “Our cooking tastes so much like home, you might as well just have stayed there.” What’s next, “Come early and grow your own wheat?”
Instead the gracious proprietors, Tom and Nancy, set out a north country spread worthy of the finest full service European hotel. Almost the very opposite of the home cooking we have adjusted to in our own.
What did shock us was the last minute logistic flexibility that allowed us to stay on at the last minute into what had to be a booked-to–the-max national holiday. At their own initiative they opted to contact the one couple yet to arrive, agreeing it would be prudent for those guests to delay their own arrival until the skys cleared. We reciprocated by volunteering to chop more wood to help weather the impending elements. As they say, an activity that “warms you twice.” Your own waffles – my Aunt Harriet! Some day we hope to head back, if only because both of us had forgotten to ask what a "queechee" was.
But enough about our own good fortune. Is it yours that’s got you down, Bunky? No war stories to compare with those of previous years? Well, my little wanderers, just be grateful you’re not a member of the Executive Branch, where there’s frequently a higher holiday disaster pie to measure up to -- whenever wings take dream.
The Friday before Thanksgiving, forty-four years ago, the President of the United States throws a quick Dallas excursion into the pre-holiday travel itinerary, and that changed our country forever. Things had to get better, if only because they couldn't possibly sink the nation any lower. Take last year. Nov. 21, 2006 to be exact.
Dateline Honolulu. First couple George and Laura Bush squeeze in a restful Hawaiian stopover on their way home from the Pacific Rim Summit. In turn, the twins are spending the holiday on their own in Buenos Aires.
Next thing you know, three motorcycle officers are injured in a freakish morning motorcade accident on the way to a breakfast with the troops at Hickam Field. Sadly, one succumbs to his injuries, leaving a wife and four children. And you were upset because American parked you over the wing? But wait, unlike the preceding, some of this anniversary we're acknowledging has become shadenfreudenly acceptable, if only because the injuries were temporary, yet still ironic.
Earlier that morning, as has been reported, in the predawn hours of Nov. 21, acting White House Travel Director, Greg Pitts, age 25, accompanying the President back from Asia, is robbed and beaten silly by three unknown assailants, while bar-hopping in Waikiki. This was the travel expert who apparently planned the trip. Broken nose, but a hell of a travel experience to try to top this year.
Later, around 3:00 that afternoon , ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross informs us that one of the Bush twins -- Barbara to be precise -- had both her purse and cell phone stolen while dining in a Buenos Aires restaurant -- right under the eyes of the secret service. To round out the caper, one member of the pair's advance security detail had already been "badly beaten" according to Argentine law enforcement reports, in an altercation during a previous evening out on his own time.
Is it any wonder the very next presidential signing statement -- now affixed to the bottom of each White House travel voucher reads: "Please stay in your room, even if the minibar Goldfish crackers are $6.50 and the only in-room movie you haven't seen is a Susan Sarandon. Don't worry, the title of the in-room entertainment does not show up on your bill at check-out. Think of the $12.95 as reasonable in terms of a defense contract."
As White House operatives scrample to determine if the purloined phone could possibly contain an incriminating home number for the late Watergate burglary mastermind E. Howard Hunt, the rest of us pine for something slightly more in the national interest -- like Paris Hilton’s Fave 5.
A year later, the White House remains on mute with regard to the South American cell phone incident. However we are fortunate that a dKos request filed under the little known Freedom From Information Act allows us to share heretofore unreleased details of the travel aide's Waikiki mugging. Two wit, a full transcript of Mr. Pitts' alleged Honolulu Police Department deposition. But first, so as to better understand references made therein, we also humbly offer the actual online transcript of one of the TV news stories describing said attack.
White House Aide Mugged in Waikiki
Sabrina Hall - Nov. 21, 2006 KGMB-TV9 Honolulu (broadcast transcript)
Police say the acting director of the White House travel office was robbed and beaten early this morning in Waikiki. Gregg Pitts, 25, was found bruised and bloodied inside the International Marketplace. He's now at Queen's Medical Center with a possible concussion and broken nose.
"This morning (there was) a blood stain about that big right here on the ground," says Thomas Ruiz, a janitor for the International Market Place. Ruiz says at about seven this morning he cleaned up a large blood stain... where police say Pitts was beaten and mugged.
"The male was walking in the Marketplace when he was knocked down," said Capt. Frank Fujii of the Honolulu Police Department. "He was punched, kicked and the assailants took his wallet and identification."
Pitts and colleagues left the Hilton Hawaiian Village for a dinner on Waikiki Beach. After eating at Dukes, sources say Pitts and a group of White House staffers crossed the street and went into the nightclub Bobby G's. At two in the morning, police say Pitts left the nightclub alone and was attacked by three men.
Sources tell KGMB -TV9 Pitts was too drunk at the time of the attack to give police a description of the three suspects.
Daily Kos ersatz editor’s note: an earlier report that Sabrina Hall also happened to be the name of Honolulu’s drunk tank/dry out facility appears to be just another one of those urban legends.
NOVEMBER 21, 2006
HPD Capt. Frank Fujii: For the record would you state your name, please.
Victim: Gregg Pittthhh.
Capt. Fujii: I’m sorry?
Victim: Pittthhh, Gregg Pittthh.
Capt. Fujii: Could you please spell that?
Victim: P-I-T-T---Eth. I’m thorry. I just losth four teeth.
Capt. Fujii: Also for the record, your occupation and reason for your visit to Hawaii.
Pittthhh: Acting director, White House Travel Offith. Purpose of visit is clathified.
Capt. Fujii: We need something for the report.
Pittthhh: OK, you dragged it out of me. Cheney wants the offshore drilling rights to Jack Lord’s hair.
Capt. Fujii: Can you tell us what happened.
Pittthhh: I was mugged. They got my wallet, my thellphone and my pathport.
Capt. Fujii: Can you describe the circumstances in which the incident happened?
Pittthhh: It’s fuzzy. I’ll do my betht. A bunch of us went to dinner at Duketh’s. Then we decided to go over to Bobby G’th bar in the Marketplathe. We had a couple of drinkths and the bartender said he wouldn’t serve us any more. I said, “Thith ith ridiculouth. The twins have been coming here for years. They never even got carded.”
Capt. Fujii: Uh, huh.
Pittthhh: I tried to get one of them on the line to confirm that, but couldn’t because Barbara just had her purth and thellphone stolen in Buenoth Aireth. He thought that was quite a cointhedenth. But as you can thee, a lot of the overtheas travel we’ve been scheduling hasn’t been going that well lately.
Capt. Fujii: And then what happened?
Pittthhh: Well the others started back to the hotel, but I wasn’t going to cut and run becauth of a little thetback. So we started walking over to Don Ho’s Beachcomber to thee if I could get us some drinkths there. But we got lothd.
Capt. Fujii: Yes?
Pittthhh: I told everybody I was from the White Houthe and did anybody know how I could find Ho’s. They said “What, again? Why don’t you guys just ask that Abramoff fella, like alwayth?”
Capt. Fujii: I see where this may be going.
Pittthhh: I kept telling people I was looking for “Ho’s.” They said “Who?” I said “Ho.” They said “Who? Who are you looking for?” I said “Ho at the restaurant.” They asked, “Who’s at the restaurant? I said “Ho.” Three times, “Ho Ho, Ho!!!” Some guy said that wasn’t funny and I took a thwing at him.
Capt. Fujii: And then what?
Pittthhh: Three burly waterboarders come over and said they were making a thitithen’s arretht. Said it was illegal to look for Ho’s in Honolulu. I said I wath looking for the Ho restaurant. They said a lot of the girlths hung out at a diner on Admiral Nimithz Highway.
Capt. Fujii: Don’t you mean “surfboarders?”
Pittthhh: Sure, what did I say?
Capt. Fujii: You said “waterboarders.”
Pittthhh: I did? You’ll have to forgive me. I was getting this mixed up with those other tropical vacations we book at Gitmo. That waterboarding may not be torture, but I’ll be the first to admit it’th not in the “aloha thpirit” either.
Capt. Fujii: It’s good you're able to clear that up. Then what happened?
Pittthhh: Because nobody was looking forward to the paperwork at 1:00 in the morning, they let us off with a thurfer's thitithen's warning. We gave up on Ho's for the time being and headed back over to Bobby G's club.
Capt. Fujii: And that's where it happened. Were your companions unable to intercede on your behalf?
Pittthhh: No. They were in the club and I went outside to take a pith because I couldn't find the men's room? So I'm standing there holding onto my business, and oh no, here come those three thwiftboaters again.
Capt. Fujii: You mean Thurfboarders, er, surfboarders.
Pittthhh: Right, I'll never get that wrong again. I explained it wasn't what it looked like. I wasn't still out looking for Ho's. And even before, I hadn't been looking for a girl Ho like they thought, I was looking for a guy Ho.
Capt. Fujii: That must have helped quite a bit.
Pittthhh: Well, no. They said that wasn't any better. But it looked like they were going to let me alone again.
Capt. Fujii: So when did things start to get ugly.
Pittthhh: Well, I'm in the process of thipping mythelf up, and I made the mistake of asking if any of them knew anywhere in the Marketplathe where I could get my hands on a really big thalami.
Capt. Fujii: A what?
Pittthhh: A thalami! I told them I had gotten all tenth, being this far away from my home in Thilver Thprings and all, and was certain I could obtain some relief by just holding onto a large thalami.
Capt. Fujii: Even accepting the rather bizarre concept for a minute, you’re the travel director. How can you be nervous being away from home?
Pittthhh: So? Brownie was the FEMA diretor. Competenth ithn’t always a factor. Anyway, I guess I had been noticeably anxious. So all day long, other tourists were telling me that last week, they had also been quite jittery about being on and island in the middle of the Pathific, because of the emergeny warning. But everybody was relieved when the thalami showed up and it was only 16 inches.
Capt. Fujii: Huh? Oh. tsunami! You mean tsunami. Yes, we had a tsunami warning a week ago after the Japanese earthquake, but when the wave hit, it was only about 16 inches, so we were relieved.
Pittthhh: I’ll never make that mithtake again either.
Capt. Fujii: And then what happened?
Pittthhh: To further the mithunderstanding, they noticed I was wearing a grath thkirt.
Capt. Fujii: Yeh, what is that? You didn’t purchase that in Hawaii did you? Looks a little too clipped and manicured.
Pittthhh: Athroturf. Got it in Houston from the Athrodome, after I handled the Katrina travel arrangements from the Thuperdome. I thought it would make a thuper grath thkirt. I’d look thnappy. May have been bad intelligenth.
Capt. Fujii: So the elements kept piling up.
Pittthhh: A perfect thorm. Duketh’s restaurant. That was a known known. Then we went to Bobby’s G’th. That was a known unknown – becauth we knew they would cut us off but didn't know after how many pina coladas. And finally Don Ho’s -- an unknown unknown, because, they couldn’t understand what it was I didn’t know how to get to.
Capt. Fujii: So how did everything get out of hand?
Pittthhh: Well, I reiterated things weren't what they seemed. We had experience at the White House with gay male escorts, and I certainly wasn't going homotropic in the tropics, so they might as well just leave me alone. Next thing I knew they had me on the ground, beating the stuffing out of me, and, to add inthult to injury, I wake up at Queen’th Medical Thenter in a grath thkirt with no wallet no pathport and no thellphone.
Capt. Fujii: OK Mr. Pitts, would you mind if we took a moment to interview this other witness? Sir, I understand you were there shortly after the altercation took place. Can we have your name and occupation?
Ruiz: Thomas Ruiz. I’m a custodian at the International Marketplace.
Capt. Fujii: And what did you see?
Ruiz: I didn’t see anything.
Capt. Fujii: How could you not see anything? It all happened practically right in front of you.
Ruiz: It’s possible. In 1980, my daughter Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon. There must have been 100,000 people – and not one of them got a glimpse of her until she crossed the finish line. Stuff happens.
Pittthhh: (Interrupts) Ahhh, the Rosie Garden Strategy – how to run in a midterm election without anybody seeing you with the President.
Capt. Fujii: Mr. Pitts, any chance you can describe your attackers?
Pittthhh: As I was lying there in a pool of my own blood, rum, pineapple juice and coconut milk, I still couldn’t help notice that one of these young men theemed to be of Chinethe descent, one Vietnamethe, and the third either Japanethe or Korean.
Capt. Fujii: If you got that good a look, why did you wait until now to file a report?
Pittthhh: Well, I was thore. Really, really thore. But then I realized, hey, there could be a lesson for everyone in this. If instead of thectarian violence, these three thurfboarders of different Asian nationalities could work together in a coalition of the willing to beat the crap out of me – maybe we could say the agreement we found at the Pathific Rim Thummit held the promise of hope for Iraq?
Capt. Fujii: You’re lying aren’t you?
Pittthhh: OK. You got me. I didn’t have time to file a police report, because there was other pressing travel business.
Cap. Fuji: Uh, like what?
Pittthhh: Well, a couple of the guys wanted to make a quick stop in the Northern Marianas. DeLay said there was a great outlet mall. At the same time, I was supposed to be re-booking a connecting flight for Senator Craig from Idaho We had him going through Denver, but for some reason he insisted on Minneapolis.
Capt. Fujii: Now wait a minute. You're sitting there with a broken nose in a grass skirt and expect me to believe you’re the only one in the whole travel office who could put a senator on an airplane and make sure nothing goes wrong? In that case, I’ve got an eight lane interstate bridge up there in Minnesota, that collapsed into the Mississippi I’d like to try to sell you.
Pittthhh: Well, we are into privitization....
Capt. Fujii: But at least you finally did come over here to the police station to file a report.
Pittthhh: Well, no. That’s not why I’m here. The White House travel director getting mugged at two in the morning, a block from his hotel could create the appearanth of incompetenth. Remember the big Clinton travel offith housecleaning? So I decided to stay the courth.
Capt. Fujii: Then why are you here? Pittthhh: FEMA sent me. They mithplaced the Prethidenth’s luggage. I was checking with Lothd & Found.
Capt. Fujii: Hadn’t we better get you to a hospital?
Pittthhh: No thanks. I’ll wait until we get back to Walter Reed. When it comes to medical care, the White House demands only the besth.
Capt. Fujii: And apparently doesn't read the papers.
For 15 years, Roger Burke was the film commissioner in Dallas-Fort Worth -- centrally located for holiday travel almost exactly half way between Lufkin and Lubbock. He published an online newsletter Occasional News Events From Around Texas And Selected States (accronym intentional) until he realized that 10,000 other people pushing fake news on the Internet were probably already sufficient. So he figured it was about time to actually mosey on out of the Lone Star State a little more often. As a result, former news satire junkies can now generally count on him attempting to integrate some of that same perspective into about a half dozen otherwise straightforward travel pieces a year for publications and various broadcast outlets - all the while staying glued to Aung San Suu Kyi's MySpace page (yes, she has one).
Therefore tips gratefully accepted.