CNN Reporter Blogs About Congressmen Flying High on the Taxpayer Dime

Here's another example of how blogs can be a great outlet for objective reporting, even if the outlet in question is traditionally biased to the Left.

[Update (18:26 EDT): NewsBusters' own Warner Todd Huston wrote about congressional travel expenses 10 days ago.]

At the "Anderson Cooper 360" blog, CNN correspondent Drew Griffin took a look at "Spring break travel... Congress-style.":

Flying in military jets is especially important when our leaders need to go to Iraq, or remote parts of Africa, Afghanistan -- places that are hard to get to or dangerous to visit.

But the Virgin Islands, Trinidad, London? At $10,000 a flight hour, those places are where some of your representatives took these military planes over spring break.

The bill for Rep. Barney Frank's flight to London and Brussels was $160,000.00. He could have flown his entire group business class for about half the cost. But his spokesman said flying the military charter made the transportation a lot easier.

That's the same reason Rep. Bennie Thompson's delegation didn't fly commercial. They made lots of stops: Mexico, Honduras, the Virgin Islands and Key West. That's a tough itinerary if you have to travel commercially. The cost of the flights: $130,000.00

My only gripe, Griffin left out the party affiliation for Frank (D-Mass.) and Thompson (D-Miss.), nor did he note their leadership roles in the Democratic caucus. Frank is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Thompson as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.