COMMENTARY: Elaine Chao and Me

Tuesday evening. Flying from Omaha back home to Chicago on United. Who sits in my row but Elaine Chao -- Trump's Secretary of Transportation and Mitch McConnell's wife.

I'm at the window. She's on the aisle. The middle seat between us is vacant. She busies herself on her laptop, on her phone and by flipping through stacks of photocopied news clips about polling and politics.

We're on a relatively short flight. I wait until the plane begins our descent into O'Hare and then I lean toward her, tap the newspaper story shown here and say, "I just have to say, this is despicable. You are part of a heartless Administration."

She snaps. And I mean snaps. "Why are you talking to me about this? I have nothing to do with this. I'm on a private visit." (I don't know what she meant by "private visit." She had been in Omaha on official business, doing a photo-op at the Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps Chao's first impulse, like her boss and so many others, is to lie.)

I add, "You and your husband should be ashamed of yourselves."

She stiffens. "Don't talk to me!" Her two flunkies seated in the row ahead of us turn their heads; one, a young woman, says, "Ma'am?"

I lean back into my seat. Chao snaps once more: "Call or write the President. Or write your newspaper."

I say nothing else.

Once the plane lands and is rolling toward the terminal, Chao leans toward me, smiles in a phony-reassuring way. It's time for "Take Two" -- she's had a chance to think what her "appropriate" response should've been!

"It's a difficult problem," she tells me, her voice dripping with false sincerity, "and we're doing what we can to solve it."

I say nothing and turn away.

… I wish I had been more eloquent or said more. But I made my point so maybe no more words were necessary. Chao certainly revealed her true self.