Hi Roger,

My understanding is that the Chairman of the House Aviation
Subcommittee wrote a letter to Mr. Stone explaining that he and his
organization had gone way beyond the Congressional intent, which
expressly related to aircraft weighing more than 12,500 lbs. Although
that may not have been what the law said in writing, Congressional
intent is part of the law. Also, I'm sure Congress left the
implementation details to TSA, and it's the details that have so many
of us upset, not the idea of adding genuine security.

TSA seems to have rolled back implementation just enough to avoid
getting smacked by said Chairman, and did it a day late, presumably to
make a point. AOPA was pretty upset at what amounted to a display of
raw arrogant power by TSA, and made that fairly clear on the web site.
Phil Boyer certainly made it sound like he was upset.

What happened the next day was rather dismal. If that's how you treat
someone who demonstrates how little he thinks of AOPA's concerns, how
can we show gratitude to our friends, for heaven's sake? And there's
a bigger problem: how many officials do you think are going to care
much what Phil Boyer says to them now, when someone who has dissed him
publicly gets a standing ovation from our members? That was a huge
mistake.

I think Stone showed up, by the way, because he was literally unaware
of the issue: that's what happens when you don't listen. He evidently
said as much on a number of occasions, when asked about various
issues.

I'm not suggesting he should have been embarrassed in public. I'm
suggesting he should have been disinvited as being an inappropriate
speaker, given our current organizational conflicts of interest
(even/especially if he's unaware of it), until such time as his
organization actually listens to ours. If he doesn't plan to listen,
we should start making his life miserable (tit for tat, classic game
theory). He actually stood up there and said he takes input from
AOPA: does anyone seriously think AOPA didn't tell him, on Day 1, that
he was out of his mind on this one? He's not aware of it: therefore,
he didn't ask, or if he asked it was purely to placate AOPA and he
didn't actually listen to the answer.

I'm not particularly opposed to adding some security to flight
training. I think a bunch of sensible suggestions (even one or two of
the things actually in this rule) could have been implemented with FAA
and AOPA helping.

But we needed Phil to get this guy's attention, to kick his butt, not
kiss it.

And no, I'm not at all sure he'll be taking Phil's calls in the
futu it didn't hurt him to ignore them this time, after all. Phil
had to burn major political capital to get this guy to listen a
little, and you can bet he'll stonewall on changing the rules too ("my
hands are tied, yada, yada"). A few more rounds of this and Phil will
be all out of political influence - and this Stone will walk on us.
In negotiations, you have to have leverage and sometimes you have to
use it. Kissing up doesn't get you anywhere until the fact that "we
need each other" has been established and clearly understood. I don't
yet see much sign of that.

I do hope I'm wrong.