Bridge to Nowhere spin: classic Repug misdirect.

[Minnesota_Lib]

The Repug party is controlling the message again. By focusing on the infamous bridge, they are engaging in a bit of the old Texas-two-step. Yes, Palin's flip-flop on the bridge is embarrassing, but it is less damaging to her image as a reformer than the rest of the story that is being overlooked by keeping the bridge as the focal point of the story. The implication is that this crusading reformer saved the U.S. taxpayer $223 million by rejecting the pork.

But as Deepthroat once suggested, "Follow the money."

The bridge was merely a symbol of pork spending. The real story is what happened to the $223 million that was earmarked for this project. Around the time Gov. Palin "just said no to the bridge," congress--despite the posturing and faux outrage of many of its members--had quietly changed the earmark designation from the well-publicized bridge to a less controversial and generic "transportation needs," a fact of which I am sure Palin was well aware.

So yes, that great reformer, Gov. Porklin, shouted out for all the land to hear a resounding "no" to the Bridge to Nowhere...and out of the other side of her month whispered "yes, oh, yes" to the pork funds.

And this should be the story.


<one of many sources that mention what actually happened to the funds>

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN3125537020080901

The Republican-controlled Congress still gave Alaska the $452 million it had requested for the two bridges, merely removing the earmark directing where the state should spend the money. Gov. Frank H. Murkowski (R), who was once Stevens's junior colleague in the Senate, intends to spend that money on the bridges