Originally Posted by
jimrpa
Elected officials <> "celebrities". These folks are "servants of the people". I don't care of Rihanna or Madonna or Jay Leno or whoever spend whatever amount of their own money (or their sponsors money) they want on private lounges filled with champagne, crack, hookers, whatever.
Politicians, who are paid by me, shouldn't be wasting my money on their privacy, especially in this environment.
A final note, almost all politicians a the federal level are multi-millionaires in their own right. If they need "privacy", they can pay for it out of their own pocket (see my comment about "celebrities" above).
By the way, I would not want to be, nor have I ever had any interest in being, either a politician or a celebrity.
Delta pays rent for that room, and for their protocol staff, which is part of their government relations operation in DC, which, whether we like it or not, they've got to have as an outfit which is regulated virtually from head to toe by the feds. I've personally witnessed a middle aged lady who has worked for Delta for quite a while personally escort military flag officers through security.
As far as politicians are concerned, the late Ted Kennedy personally intervened with the CEO of US Scare to save the job of their DCA protocol person and to save their version of the "Protocol Office", which US Scare was going to axe in order to save some money. So, Teddy could continue his tradition of drinking other people's scotch.