The campaign, surrogates and blogosphere are all screwing up the Bridge to Nowhere Story [View All]

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The fact that Palin was "before it before she was against it" is not of much interest.

This is the typical tit-for-tat, day late dollar short Dem idea of "fighting back." (We internalize everything Republicans do and treat it is magic... they said that about Kerry, so it must be a devastating line of attack!)

The reason the public has a problem with the Bridge to Nowhere is that it represented federal taxpayer's MONEY.

Palin says "We said thanks but no thanks for the bridge to nowhere. If Alaska wants a bridge we will build it ourselves."

The unmistakable implication is she declined to accept a certain parcel of federal taxpayer financed MONEY. (And that if she "stopped the bridge to nowhere" that stopping it somehow benefited federal taxpayers... that we spent less money as a result.)

The myth being spun is that Palin is like some Gary Cooper character, too proud and self-reliant to take federal charity/pork and who would pay for the bridge with her own money if she wanted a bridge. The implied act of declining cash is what is recognized as principled. Nobody ever turns down money! That would represent an amazing commitment to fiscal austerity if Alaska had actually said "thanks but not thanks" to the MONEY.

Declining money is an ACTION. That's what makes it such a potent political symbol.

But it never happened. She never declined any money.

So the outrage in her statement is not that a politician might have changed her position.

The outrage is that Alaska kept every penny of the bridge to nowhere money.

Federal tax payers did not save one penny. That's a FACT. Every cent of the Bridge to Nowhere money was taken by Alaska and spent on other stuff.

As a matter of practical politics that is the damning element of the issue.