When United booted a paying customer from first class to make room for a member of Congress, the Internet erupted with good and healthy egalitarian outrage. But don’t blame the airline.
The congresswoman in question was Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. And until she lands on the no-fly list, no airline is safe. Jackson Lee has been terrorizing the skies since coming to Congress in 1995.
The Democrat has developed a reputation for making life hell for any clerk, stewardess, or pilot unwilling or unable to make her three-and-a-half-hour flight anything less than glamorous. She takes advantage of federal travel perks to book multiple flights (only to cancel at the last minute and at no charge). She demands an upgrade to premier seats. She expects, in her words, “to be treated like a queen.”
Sometimes it gets ugly. For instance, when one peasant of a flight attendant failed to serve the food Jackson Lee requested, the congresswoman went wild. “Don’t you know who I am?” she reportedly shrieked. “I’m Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered!”
That inflight incident was in 1998, and Jackson Lee has only increased in seniority since. She sits on the Committee on Homeland Security and she serves as the ranking member of the subcommittee on transportation security, no doubt, giving her even more sway over the airlines and even more of a reason to feel entitled.
When accused of taking an ill-gotten first-class seat, Jackson Lee was adamant she didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just the way she expects to be treated. “I asked for nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary and received nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary,” the congresswoman said in a statement. Slay queen.
She has been off her meds too long and needs a padded cell
“Jackson Lee”. Shouldn’t someone somewhere be forcing her to change her name? Too Confederate.
Typical arrogant left wing elitist who thinks she is better than everyone else.
I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen.
Sheila Jackson Lee
@DrJohn: Yeah. Treated like Marie Antoinette. She is an embarrassment to Texas.
I know another black woman who behaved perhaps even worse, she was alway guaranteed the best flight, no booking needed. Her entourage also needed to be accommodated, made Hotel staff cry. She wasn’t elected to any office, but at her whim millions of school lunches were thrown in the trash, kids just would not eat what she chose for them to have. Same calorie count if you were a twerpy 70 lb nerd or a 200 lb football player. There were even fights about kids that bagged it, no oreos, no chips or a can of soda. Lunches taken away and the parents charged for the slop that wasnt wanted.
The lunches will fade away nothing but a bad memory, a fate we can hope for this congress person