Though it’s not exactly my beat, I can appreciate that the Paris Air Show is a very big deal in transportation, aviation, and military circles. Boeing and Airbus go a few rounds, government officials from around the world do some bragging and browsing, Wall Street analysts hunt for tips, while plane makers, buyers, and traders take advantage of the forum provided by the world’s biggest aerospace gathering.
It’s also been described as a “boondoggle” in which potential clients and powerful officials enjoy lavish benefits provided by companies that want to put on a good show. Reuters recently noted that many see the show as “merely an exercise in corporate extravagance.”
With this in mind, it’s curious that members of Congress were on hand for this year’s event — but don’t want to talk about it.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the powerful Alaska Republican who led the congressional delegation to the posh Paris Air Show — which has been called “the biggest junket there is” — refuses to disclose how many members came along, how much it cost taxpayers, and offered few details about the event.
“We don’t talk about other members. They don’t talk about us,” Stevens spokeswoman Courtney Boone said, explaining that the secrecy surrounding the trip, which stretched from June 9 to 13, is due to “security reasons” because as the president pro tempore of the Senate, Mr. Stevens is third in line for the presidency. “It’s very unusual for us to comment on trips that Senator Stevens makes because they are confidential because he’s in the line of succession.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. Sen. Stevens, who already has some lingering ethical questions surrounding his conduct and is currently the subject of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation, can’t talk about going on the “the biggest junket there is” because he’s third in the line of succession? That’s absurd.
On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be any need for secrecy. Stevens’ trip was a bipartisan affair paid for by Congress, not lobbyists. Stevens is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee, so there’s an ostensible reason for him to go to the aerospace event.
Why, then, refuse to answer questions about it? Hmm.