This is one of those stories that comes out with an outrageous headline and nothing in the story to confirm the headline, but everyone runs with the info in the headline. Buried deep in the initial story was the fact that nobody has ever complained either to the airlines or to the Army about an arrangement that has been in place for several years. On-duty military already get some HUGE allowence of free baggage (3 bags totalling over 200 pounds?) and the military reimburses any incidentals above that. There's absolutely no truth the idea that soldiers are paying these (new) fees.
The headline said something like "Soldiers pay extra bag fees when going to war"
:-)
But: always nice to see the Senator jumping at the opportunity to score points with people who don't read; when you say "micropolitics" I presume you aren't meaning that she's trying to curry favor with travelling troops, because they already know that she's making a big deal out of something that's not true. It must be the people who hear this and say "Senator Clinton is the only voice standing up for this! Can you *believe* these boys and girls have to pay those rat-bastard airlines to get their rucksack to Iraq! Ourageous! She gets my vote! Wait, what's she running for again?"
/jordan