We at Various Things & Stuff caught a glimpse of Air Force One on Monday, the majestic customized Boeing 747 waiting on the tarmac at McCarran International Airport as President George W. Bush made a quick drive to The Venetian to raise about $440,000 for U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, who reportedly is a congressman representing Southern Nevada.

Sure is a pretty plane, Air Force One, even if it only carries the name once the president steps aboard.

Everything else about the presidential visit wasn’t that pretty, and we’re not talking about the traffic tie-ups that always happen when POTUS comes to town or the inevitable Review-Journal headline over a smiling photo of the two men: “Porter gets Bush boost.”

First, Bush described Porter as “one of the rising starts in the United States Congress.” So far, at least, that’s simply not true. Porter personifies “back-bencher,” at least until he guessed right and backed new House Majority Leader Richard Boehner, R-Ohio, early on as a replacement for scandal-plagued U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. We won’t know until after the mid-term elections — assuming Porter gets re-elected — whether he’ll get any benefits from his loyalty to Boehner.

But up until now, Porter has done little but carry the water of the House Republican leadership and the administration.

Oh, we get it. That’s what Bush considers to be a “rising star.” Somebody who does what he wants!

“I’m lucky to have a fellow like Jon Porter in the United States Congress to work together to make this country more secure, more prosperous and more hopeful for all of our citizens,” Bush added.

Leave aside for a moment how we can be more “hopeful” when Bush and his government are scaring the living shit out of us at every turn by constantly talking about security. Bush really is lucky to have Porter, a guy who has only questioned the administration on the political no-shit call that is Yucca Mountain. A guy who will carry water for whatever the administration wants, even once casting an oh-so-rare tie-breaking vote on the House floor against a $1,500 bonus for active-duty service members in combat zones simply because an aide to the House majority whip told him to.

Bush sure is lucky. It’s Nevada that’s not so lucky.

Of course, Democrats seized on that line, too, and slammed Bush. New Nevada Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins, who is also a county commissioner, even turned out to say the president should be ashamed to come to Nevada, and called Porter a Bush “puppet.”

But Bush has no shame, commissioner. And, in his role as puppet, neither does Porter.

But check it out: In just one lunch at The Venetian (wonder how the Culinary Union Local 226 feels about Porter these days?) Porter raised more money than Democratic challenger Tessa Hafen has in the first six weeks of her campaign. Porter already had $1.3 million in the bank; now he’s got $1.7. And Hafen has already played her biggest-connection fund-raising card, ex-boss U.S. Sen.Harry Reid, whose donor list matches Hafen’s in many respects.

We wish money weren’t a factor here. Because then, we could just focus on politics, like Porter’s introduction of Bush, when the congressman defended many of the president’s bad calls. “The president has made some tough decisions,” Porter said. Yes, and most have been the wrong ones, congressman. (Porter avoided a mention, at least according to the R-J of things like the war in Iraq, illegal wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency and the new war on the press the administration is waging.)

But money is a factor, especially when you see the attack ads start coming from the Porter camp. We’d just like to remind voters of one thing: If it’s OK to marry Hafen to Reid’s policies, even though she was his employee and paid to carry Reid’s message to reporters, then it’s OK to marry Porter to Bush, even though his fealty to the administration is by choice. Right?

In that respect, that smiling, front-page photo might come in right handy…

Finally, for a cool press-eye view of the Bush event, check out the Las Vegas Sun dispatch filed by political reporter J. Patrick Coolican. It was a creative way to handle a story on a day the R-J was going to have the in-depth report, complete with smiling photo of Bush and Porter under a headline like, “Porter gets Bush boost.”

We tried to link, but the Sun didn’t have its story up early this morning. So just try the newspaper’s main page a little later.

UPDATE: Here’s the link to the Sun story.