Cold comfort

TO THE AIR FORCE, for its plan to spend $7.6 million on so-called “comfort capsules” to ferry senior officials aboard transport planes. Even if you buy the Air Force’s argument that the luxury seat- and berth-capsules were cheaper than dedicated VIP planes, the attempt to pay for them for the first three years with supplemental war funding was shockingly misguided. Did the Air Force really want Congress to believe that its urgent wartime needs included 37-inch flat screen TVs, beds, blue leather couches and full-length mirrors? VIP transport is a wartime requirement; extravagance is not.