Literally the only thing bad about Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was her assertion that “when the Federal government offered her the money. she said, “[T]hanks but no thanks.” Quite frankly, that is not true.
Literally every newspaper and magazine article I have read points out the fact that Governor palin was “before it before she was against it.” Moreover, most of them not that she did not return the money. Consider the following article from the Wall Street Journal:
But Gov. Palin’s claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.
“We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge,” Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, “and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.” The bridge would have linked Ketchikan to the airport on Gravina Island. Travelers from Ketchikan (pop. 7,500) now rely on ferries.
Again, this is from the Wall Street Journal, not exactly a member of the Leftist “Mainstream Media” that we all are so rightly up in arms about for being in the tank for Barack Obama.
But what really upsets me is not that Governor Palin said she was against the bridge in her acceptance speech. I still would welcome a fight between Obama and McCain on earmarks — even a debate between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden — but let’s be honest about all of this. What I don’t understand is why she and McCain keep repeating it on the stump and even in their advertisements. Again, that claim is false. Why give the Obama campaign — and the press, but I repeat myself — to call them liars?
On the issue of reform, “change” and even earmarks, the McCain/Palin ticket still wins but sorry but on the “Sarah Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere” debate, they lose.
You know Zoot you are right she should say....
JadedByPolitics Tuesday, September 9th at 9:11AM EDT (link)after careful consideration upon looking at the issue I decided it was best not to take the money for the bridge to no where BUT only if Obama says I for everything I say until you people out there question me on it and than I CHANGE my mind and HOPE you ignore it. But it’s OK if I can get my marxist a@@ planted in the seat of the Presidency…
One quibble OVER how many of Obama’s?
Whoever has his enemy at his mercy &
does not destroy him is his own enemy
The WSJ non-editorial pages are part
Mike gamecock DeVine Tuesday, September 9th at 9:27AM EDT (link)of the liberal media.
more later
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Palin and the Bridges
Achance Tuesday, September 9th at 9:49AM EDT (link)First, and again though I know it is “spitting” into the wind, neither of the so-called “Bridge(s) to Nowhere” added ONE DIME to Alaska’s share of the federal highway appropriation. Both the Ketchikan and Knik Arm bridges were specific earmarks WITHIN that appropriation.
It is true that Alaska accepted the federal highway funds; all of them, including those that were earmarked for the bridges.
It is true that while campaigning and maybe even a while into her tenure as Governor she made statements supporting a general proposition of a link between KTN and its airport. Later when it became an issue here in Alaska as well as around the Country, she backed away from supporting the KTN bridge and ultimately the “earmarked” funds for the KTN bridge were just plowed into the federal funds appropriation by the State Legislature for highway construction statewide.
Inside Alaska her position was controversial in that Southeast Alaska, where Palin enjoyed considerably less support than elsewhere in the State, rightly wondered why the much more expensive federally funded bridge connecting Palin’s hometown of Wasilla to Anchorage was a good project and a federally funded brige in Southeast was not a good project. Fuel was added to that fire by the much touted line item vetoes in the State Budget that seemed to fall much more heavily on Southeast Alaska.
In defense of Palin’s position, the earmark for the KTN bridge would require considerable State matching funds and the total cost was, at best, uncertain and certainly rising. The AKDOT is notoriously unable to estimate the cost of anything but you can generally be certain that it will cost more than the original estimate. There are other “inside” issues in that some years ago KTN was given the choice of a State capital project to put a shipyard there or to build the bridge to the airport served only by ferry; they chose the shipyard. Then they went the federal route to get the Delegation to earmark Highway funds for them for a bridge. There is also the fact that in a State larger than the next two Lower 48 states, there are fewer paved road miles than in even in many rural counties in the Lower 48 and there is intense competition between communities for Highway funds. Since Anchorage and the Matanuska Valley have over half of the population and thus the Legislature, the funds go predominantly to the Anchorage area. It is easy to resent State funds going to widen and curb and gutter ANC suburban streets in the places where there are no roads at all. Even here in Juneau, the road in front of my house has no curbing and guttering and I and my neighbors paid to pave it by establishing a Local Improvement District and paying a considerable part of the cost ourselves, the rest being paid from City funds.
So, it really isn’t fair to apply the “she was for it before she was against it” to the KTN Bridge. The most she ever did as a candidate was articulate a general support for a link to the KTN airport. After she became Governor, she pretty loudly denounced the earmark and abandoned the KTN bridge funding, though Alaska did keep all the highway funds.
Cross-posted at TMR.
In Vino Veritas
Thank you Achance
MrMosis Tuesday, September 9th at 10:15AM EDT (link)for this excellent insight.
On a not really related note, I look forward to visiting your most awesome state next spring. My brother is a resident. I hope I can stay all summer.
“I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Ipsum esse subsistens
Townhall's Amanda Carpenter's Response to BTN
Rod_Patrick Tuesday, September 9th at 10:53AM EDT (link)Link here.here
Sarah really opposed the BTN. But she’s just a “small town mayor” Governor, as said by Barack. Obama voted for the bridge.
To quote the article:
This is a very good example of the fact that Fed people in Washington are over-exercising their powers to the detriment of the rights of State governments.
Hmmm...
zroxx Tuesday, September 9th at 1:26PM EDT (link)October 21, 2006:
October 2, 2006:
August 9, 2006:
I trust the latter two sources despite the site they come from, since an archive search for “bridge palin” at the Ketchikan Daily News corroborates the dates and text of the two excerpts.
More recently from the Anchorage Daily News:
That doesn’t sound like merely articulating “a general support for a link to the KTN airport”. It sounds to me like she was for the bridge. To make matters worse, she often cited the need and opportunity for federal funds to help pay for it when speaking about it.
Look, we could be beating up countless numbers of other politicians for engaging in the same kind of undisciplined trough-feeding as Palin did, for countless other examples of unjust taxpayer fund spending. So we should keep it in perspective, it doesn’t mean she’s any worse than the average politician. Likewise, she’s not exactly someone fiscal conservatives have any reason to faun over and mythologize about and dub “Lady Reagan”.
The point is there was no reason for Palin to misrepresent her position. She could have really distanced herself from the pack if she’d gone on stage, calmly explained that her support for the bridge and for earmarks in general was a mistake, that she’s bought into McCain’s absolute position on no earmarks (will veto all bills with earmarks), and explained in sensible terms to the American public why it is that earmarking is a socialist device that unjustly enriches some taxpayers more than others and reduces the choice that American citizens have in controlling how their resources are used. That would have been truly profound. It would have been a heck of a lot more valuable for the American people to hear that kind of talk, rather than celebrity-like photos of her with a dead moose.
Instead of seeing her take the lead on the issue in a frank way, we get a weeks worth of pointing out the obvious: that Palin is a career politician who acted like most other career politicians when it comes to earmarks - up to and including trying to weasel out of responsibility for her actions.
It’s disappointing, but not surprising.
A version I read
Steph C Tuesday, September 9th at 2:11PM EDT (link)Wnet further than that stating that the monies earmarked could have gone to Katrina and both Obama and Biden voted against that while voting for the bridge to nowhere. Can’t remember where I saw that but I do remember reading it just this morning.
“[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
Hillbilly Politics
She never said she was for federal funding for the bridge and
Mike gamecock DeVine Friday, September 12th at 5:17PM EDT (link)as Governor when the revised cost estimates came in, she decided against it.
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Let's be serious.
zroxx Friday, September 12th at 10:19PM EDT (link)When someone is clearly for a project, lets say, a bridge, which is being funded largely through an earmark directed at the federal level, but then opposes the project after the federally directed earmark is revoked, that tells me that not only was she obviously for the federal funding, but that the federal funding was critical to her support of the project itself.
It would actually have played more in her favor if the earmark had been revoked but she then directed Alaskan tax dollars to completing it. It would have shown me the project was more important to her than the source of funding. So your comment provokes me to a point of even greater chastisement over her behaviour in this situation. Instead it’s clear the project wasn’t really worth the cost to her - unless citizens from other states were paying for it.
But again:
Clearly, she wanted to use the federal earmarks that the AK congressional delegation has been so successful in securing - specifically in reference to the bridge.
So I reject your premise.
You know, the most reasonable and probably the most well thought out posting I’ve seen here on this issue was the most recent one here. It glosses over the reason Palin “killed” the project (in her own words, “It’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island” - nothing about the injustice of earmarks in principle, mind you), but what it does really well is focus on all the very positive ways to look at Palin’s recent governance regarding earmarks - that is to say the trajectory of her fiscal discipline appears to be moving in the right direction. I recognize that, and never disputed it. She’s still a trough feeder, but she looks to be a curable porker, unlike most politicians. I’m still waiting for a strong statement from her that she intends to work with McCain to abolish all earmarks, however, and until then I’m going to continue viewing her fiscal discipline with all the skepticism that a career politician deserves.
Zroxx should xerox DeMint on Bridge before he falls off a cliff-LINK
Mike gamecock DeVine Friday, September 12th at 11:09PM EDT (link)Yes, Palin Did Stop That Bridge
Read it all and discover the major substantive point rather than choking on a gnat.
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Ah...
zroxx Sunday, September 14th at 8:46AM EDT (link)Key phrase: “… she once supported the project.“. So thank you for that. Once the federal earmark was revoked, she opted not to spend more Alaskan tax dollars on the project. Until that point there’s no evidence she wanted anything other than to have the bridge built, with the “largess” provided by the AK congressional delegation to help cover the cost.
Her history is dubious, her trajectory is positive, her future remains to be seen.
Do you want to add anything new or try and wage an actual debate that refutes anything I’ve written? Otherwise I’m fine letting it rest here.
I'm not gamecock, but I not fine letting it rest here, zroxx
pilgrim Sunday, September 14th at 9:10AM EDT (link)You make the accusation that Sarah Palin’s history is dubious. What the heck are you talking about? There’s nothing dubioius about resigning her commission on the Alaska Oil and Gas Regulatory Board. She walked away from the highest paying job she had ever had up to that point, and she disclosed to the public ethics violations between oil companies and top Republican officials in Alaska. There is certainly nothing dubious about that. Since she has been the Governor the number of earmarks in legislation she signed has dropped from 64 to 31. Oh no, you say it did not drop to zero. Oh no she did not include anti-abortion add-ons to the ethics legislation that Alaska passed. Sometimes one has to be pragmatic instead of purist when they are in office and want to get something accomplished.
It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man.Calvin Coolidge
Palin has stated that she supported the wishes
Mike gamecock DeVine Sunday, September 14th at 12:03PM EDT (link)of the residents of the island for “a” bridge, but rejected building it due to costs when she was in a position of authority. The funds were used elsewhere.
Don’t know, and given your tone, don’t care what “premise” you rejected.
What do I want to do? Leave you in your blissful ignorance, esp since pilgrim debunked the “dubious” charge.
Cheers
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
that was the Coburn amendment
generalgrant Sunday, September 14th at 12:17PM EDT (link)Biden and Obama voted against using the bridge money for Katrina victims. When it mattered most, these Dems supported the Bridge to Nowhere. They both are go along/get along politicians who won’t change anything.
________________________________________________________
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Ok...
zroxx Monday, September 15th at 3:30AM EDT (link)There’s nothing dubioius about resigning her commission on the Alaska Oil and Gas Regulatory Board.
Correct, but nothing to do with earmarks.
She walked away from the highest paying job she had ever had up to that point …
Correct, but nothing to do with earmarks.
… she disclosed to the public ethics violations between oil companies and top Republican officials in Alaska
Correct, but nothing to do with earmarks.
Since she has been the Governor the number of earmarks in legislation she signed has dropped from 64 to 31.
Correct, her trajectory re: financial discipline is in the right direction, as I stated.
[the number of earmarks] did not drop to zero
Also correct, and zero is where it needs to be, thus my admonishment that she be urged to do much much better.
Oh no she did not include anti-abortion add-ons to the ethics legislation that Alaska passed.
I assume that’s correct, but regardless, nothing to do with earmarks.
This entire thread and pretty much everything I’ve commented on re: Palin has been regarding earmarks, with the bridge standing out as a convenient example case. So if you took my comment above as an expression of an opinion on anything to do with Palin outside of that context, and it appears you have, then your comment is a misfire, and I’ll leave it at that.