Flights of fancy.

• Author: Malanowski, Jamie
• Position: Book Review: AIR FORCE ONE: A History of Presidents and Their Planes - Book Review

AIR FORCE ONE: A History of Presidents and Their Planes by Kenneth T. Walsh Hyperion, $24.95

AS ONE READS KENNETH T. Walsh's Air Force One: A History of Presidents and Their Planes, one from time to time feels the urge to stand up and exclaim, "Work it, brother, work it!" This would be in professional appreciation for the mulish persistence Of a veteran journalist in the undeterrable pursuit of a slender story. To make it seem that Air Force One--an airplane, remember, a flying bus--has enough conceptual integrity and heft to earn itself a book (instead of, say, a longish article in American Heritage), Walsh lays it on with a trowel. Air Force One, he tells us, is "a symbol of power, freedom and prestige, immediately recognizable by virtually all Americans and by millions of people around the world." Air Force One, he tells us, is "part of our national mythology," "a force in popular culture," and something--get this--that "is regularly seen on the news." To buttress this hyperbole, he trots out the most expert of expert witnesses. He quotes President George W. Bush saying, "It's a majestic symbol of our country. It reminds me of a bird, the bald eagle in a way." He quotes former president Bill Clinton saying, "We had actually quite a lot of eventful decisions that bad to be made on Air Force One." He quotes former vice president Walter Mondale calling Air Force One "an enormous symbol of American technological excellence."

Well, far be it from me, a blue American, to question in this period of perpetual crisis anything the president has to say, but calling any plane "a majestic symbol" of America on a par with a bald eagle does seem to betray the speaker as poetically challenged. And far be it from me to doubt anything President Clinton has to say, but when any baby boomer manages to work the words "actually" and "quite a lot" into a sentence, feel free to tell the chef to put weasel on the menu. And far be it from me to make fun of the flat, underwhelming oratory of Fritz Mondale. But the rest of you can go ahead.

As if it wasn't enough for Air Force One to be a myth and a symbol and a pop star and the locus of power, Walsh, the chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, would also like us to believe that the plane is "an invaluable window on the presidents themselves," "a very special habitat ... that magnifies his virtues and flaws and reveals there is a real human being underneath the public facade." Now, it is quite...