Palin on the Bridge
September 3rd, 2008 by Steven GardnerEven the Democrats said the speech was well delivered.
My question: Could this be the comment from tonight that ends up hurting Sarah Palin the most?
“I told the Congress “thanks, but no thanks,” for that Bridge to Nowhere.
If our state wanted a bridge, we’d build it ourselves.”
She didn’t add, “I took the money. I mean I’m not crazy.” Alaska did keep the federal money. I think the argument some have made here that a mayor or governor can be against a federal giveaway program, but still take advantage of it. I knew a city councilman against Community Development Block Grants, but said while the system was in place he’d take the money. Larry Stokes at the port has said he’d take money for infrastructure for Kitsap SEED, because if he didn’t the money would go elsewhere.
But that wasn’t what Palin implied. She implied that the federal government offered money to build the bridge and that she said, “No.” That’s not how it happened.
Someone may have already posted this link, but in case not, here’s an Anchorage Daily News article from Sunday that goes into Palin’s and the bridge and other issues surrounding her reputation.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
If one is truly against government giveaways, an executive or council member has to put their foot down and say “no, I’m not accepting it.” Otherwise, one can just they’re against such ideas (making the the taxpayers happy) while taking the money anyway.
If you want to take a principled stand, you have to not take the earmark.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I disagree, Nikky. You have to play the hand you are dealt.
If you believe that the flat tax is better than the current tax structure, is it a principled stand to refuse to take your standard deductions under our current tax system?
If you believe the speed limit should be 30 MPH on the freeway, is it a principled stand to go 30 MPH instead of 60?
You have to play the hand you are dealt. If that means that the only way to get an important transportation system into your community is through the current system of earmarks, so be it (so long as it is legal).
Advocate for change? Propose a better way? Support candidates who will change the system? Absolutely!
But you would be doing your community a disservice by refusing a legal source of funds to get an important project done.
Regards,
Kathryn Simpson
September 4th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Palin did a Bravo Zulu speech. The offensive line-up of Romney, Huckaby, Lickle (gov of HI), Gulliani like a line of impressive battleships, also make the point about THE ONEs veneer of experience or legislative record.
The press, including the host of this blog, can suddenly be great investigators of this and that but for how long have the same set never asked THE ONE about his record, his Weather Underground terrorist pals, he Anti-American “minister,” about felon and loan consultant Tony Resko. No, little asked about that but the blog man here asked is a sentence out of the speech could the sentence to stop her. PLEASE — get real and stop wearing your bias so brazenly.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:41 am
You keep claiming that you “have to play the hand you’re delt.”
Yet Palin indicated that if they truly wanted the bridge, Alaska could have delt another hand and found the funding for themselves.
Besides, do you truly want to just rely on the luck of the draw? That’s a scary thought…
September 4th, 2008 at 6:53 am
And while I also appreciate your use of the “30MPH/60MPH” highway analogy, I think it misses the target and isn’t particularly relevant to the discussion at hand.
A better example would be “if you believe that federal highway spending is needless, unnecessary, and unresponsive to community needs… should you drive on a locally funded and constructed road instead of that 8-lane out of the way interstate?”
And yes, support candidates who will change the system! If you support and vote into office enough who will actually not take the money and fight the government to tell them “we don’t want it,” they might take the hint.
If you take the funds because you can, it’s just self-propagating the system.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:30 am
I see nothing principled about Palin misrepresenting her cancellation of the Bridge to Nowhere as evidence of her professed opposition to earmarks. By the time she cancelled the project, the federal funding for it was mortally wounded and, as reported in the Anchorage Daily News story cited by Steve, the state got the money anyway. An earlier article in the ADN summarized the case well:
“And her role in killing the much-touted Bridge to Nowhere? Talk about coming in after the battle is over and bayoneting the wounded.”
September 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Oops. Here’s the link to that earlier article: http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/510703.html
September 4th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Charlie — Considering your concern about misrepresentations, are you not also concerned about Joe Biden’s outlandish plagiarism? How about Obama’s relations with Rezko? Thoughts on Obama’s double-talk to small-town America, telling voters he cares about workers, but throwing us to the wolfes in San Francisco (i.e., “they cling to their guns and religion”)
Kathryn — Great response (as usual).
Steven — As Reagan would have said, “There you go again.”
September 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Palin hit a home run, tearing the mask off the Obama/Biden myth and assailing the left-leaning media and critics. If the best the Obama machine can produce is talking points on the Bridge to Nowhere, I’d suggest Palin walked away with grand prize for the day.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I doubt it will be something that haunts her Steve, other comments in her speech could be taken as propaganda as well . Did you hear Obama’s speech ? I heard the 5 million dollar comment McCain used to define rich, talk about unprincipled. Listen to those comments and itsd hard for any person to suggest MCCain meant that in anything but sarcasm . If you listen to pundits , they are always talking about the fear of their politicians saying something that will be used out of context or later . Like Biden comments during his campaign saying Obama is not experienced enough . It will be the folks like Charlie and Nikki that may use the Bridge to no where , but most people have moved on and the only thing they will get from that speech is Palin sounded qualified , a family person, and sticks up for the little guy . Obama gives messages like Change , it works .
Thompson drilled him on change is not a destination. But the change comments will be what works the most for Obama , and help Obama still.
I think the test now is if Palin can have good answers on policies . From the degrading way the left , I could not believe some of the comments , white trash , sluttey, religious names, etc , GW with Breasts , even attacking her 17 year 0ld daughter , and that was on our blog at the sun. People have to buy an Ann Coulkter book or have it quoted by a partsian to hear such remarks . In fact these went beyond . I think that is what will be remembered the most , she came out I though holding herself fine , gave a speech where she gave it right back to the nasties , but with a smile on her face which always goes farther in the politics of attack .
Either case , Obama can no longer hold on to his unity aspect of his campaign , which I one of the reasons I liked him also / Tired of this kind of disgusting stuff.
Facts.org is a good web to see how they take positions of each side and get them wrong to make a political point .
Both sides do it .
Thats the main principle of politics .
I am voting for McCain because he shares more of my beliefs on smaller government beiung better for us in the long run . I ahppen to believe both candidates happen to believe what they are doing will hekp the majority of us .
Shame shame on the political hacks
September 4th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Mick, Amen.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Mike, since you didn’t document your Biden or Obama-Rezko allegations, I’ll do the first one for you:
“Twenty years ago, Biden was, in a sense, the Obama of his time, a young turk of a politician with a gift for soaring, transcendental rhetoric. But his first bid for the presidency imploded in 1988 when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock that described the candidate’s working-class roots. Biden was forced from the race after the campaign of eventual nominee Michael Dukakis circulated a videotape with Biden failing to give credit to Kinnock for a speech he gave in Iowa.
“Biden, however, had credited Kinnock with the remarks in his other speeches, leaving many of his supporters at the time — and long after — feeling like Biden was pushed from the stage unfairly.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200808230003
Because Biden properly credited Kinnock in speeches given before and after the one where he failed to do so, there’s a good chance his intent wasn’t to deceive, in which case his offense might better be described as “sloppy” than “outrageous.”
As for Rezko, can you be a little more specific than “How about Obama’s relations with Rezko?” If you’re alleging some wrongdoing, please document your charges.
Re: people clinging to their guns & religion: Not very tactful. Was he wrong?
September 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Since it appears that all the Democrats can say is “she was for it before she was against it,” Gov. Palin may not need to worry.
The “bridge to nowhere” earmark was removed in Nov. 2005 — long before Palin even campaigned for the governor’s office.
The question then was whether to build the bridge with that money, since the federal funding was still going to come to Alaska.
Building it would require a big expenditure of state funding. Only about half the cost, if that, could be paid with federal funds.
Palin took office as governor in Dec. 2006, and in Sept. 2007 she nixed the bridge project after seeing that it was not the most cost-effective use of the available state and federal funding. (If she really said anything like “thanks, but no thanks,” to anyone, it would have been the supporters of the bridge project, including her own state’s congressional delegation.)
Did she “champion” earmark reform? In her own state, she apparently did. The process for funding capital projects in the state legislature was changed to make it more of an evaluation of cost-effectiveness rather than a test of political pull.
It doesn’t matter that she was for it before she was against it. Lots of people were for it (and other projects like it) — that’s how the earmark abuse grew to be so bad in the first place. The point is that when she was one of the government officials making decisions, she saw the light and said “no.”
From what I’ve read as I tried to learn what occurred, it seems obvious that many people don’t know (or don’t want to say) what the earmark abuse problem is. It is a process by which the normal evaluation of projects by legislative committees and executive branch officials is short-circuited by legislators with the pull to have their pet projects inserted anonymously with no scrutiny at all by anyone. The abuse is not the funding of local projects. It is the avoidance of scrutiny.
When Palin, as governor or mayor, sought federal funding for other projects, that isn’t “abuse” — unless you can show that she sought to avoid scrutiny of her projects by people who are responsible for spending public revenue in cost-effective ways on projects that can meet whatever criteria are established for selecting those to fund and those that won’t be funded.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Bob,
Thanks for that great explanation and education.
Regards,
Kathryn Simpson
September 4th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
My argument, Bob, isn’t that she was wrong to change her mind on the bridge and how to use the money. But I think the impression she left with her speech last night, to people not willing to look up what really happened, is that she said, “No thanks” to the money, when clearly that is not the case.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Steve,
She said, “No thanks” to the bridge and since the money was already committed to Alaska, she found more worthy uses of the funds.
I agree she could have been more clear. But then again, I wonder if, regarding the jet, she really just “sold it on ebay”. I’m sure there was a lot more to the story.
Regards,
Kathryn Simpson
September 4th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I understand your argument, Steven, and I don’t disagree with you about the impression most people would get from hearing what she said. I got the same impression, found it hard to believe, and checked to see what really happened — then tried to figure out what rationale could possibly support her statement about being a “champion” and saying “no thanks.”
I just haven’t seen anyone in the opposition (including the Obama cheering section known as “the MSM”) make the case in a way that will matter. Maybe if that preacher at “Saddleback” or whatever its name is can sit her down for a chat, she will have to explain and possibly squirm a bit. He’s obviously sharp enough.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Bob, Palin vetoed the bridge because it had become a laughingstock and she didn’t want to be immortalized by the “Sarah Palin Memorial Bridge to Nowhere.”
September 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I think a more serious issue is how Sarah Palin, as mayor, hired a lobbyist to actively pursue federal earmarks for her town – and which projects those earmarks funded.
According to a story in the Chicago Tribune:
“Three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of “objectionable” spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin.”
and:
“Wasilla had received few if any earmarks before Palin became mayor. She actively sought federal funds — a campaign that began to pay off only after she hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who long controlled federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-na-earmarks3-2008sep03,0,5932587.story
I’m certainly sympathetic to to people working within a system while at the same time trying to reform it – but this is starting to sound like the prefect in Casablanca who is “shocked to find gambling” while collecting his winnings…
September 5th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Isn’t it sad that the system is so bad that a town has to hire a lobbyist.
If you can make $1000 per day marketing your products in Seattle, but the trucking company you use only delivers on time once a week or so, you will quickly find a new trucker, even if it costs you $50 instead of $10 per day because getting your products to market on time every day is a priority.
The lobbyist is, unfortunately, the more efficient trucker. Government entities must get their case heard in order to successfully land a grant or an earmark is essential. As long as it is legal and there are no pay-offs. I don’t like the system, but “if you aren’t at the table, you are on the menu”.
Regards,
Kathryn Simpson
September 5th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
A little more background. The Bridge is/was actually supposed to go to Gravina Island, near Ketchikan. When Palin was running for Governor, she committed to the citizens of Ketchikan that she was FOR the Bridge. It was part of her campaign.She supported it and them.When she said she was AGAINST the Bridge, my darn mouth dropped open. People, she’s flat out lying about that. Period.
When Palin left Wasilla to be the Gov., the little town was over 20 Million dollars in debt.That’s OK? That’s how to play the game?
She has cut 65% of the budget earmarked for Special needs children as Gov. of Alaska. She line item Vetoed money for a halfway house for unwed teen mothers (That’s GOT to hurt!)
Folks, she is doing this with a 5 Billion dollar budget surplus. The huge spike in oil prices has been very good to Alaska.
Want another one? She sold the Governors private jet on ebay. Wrong. She listed it for 2.7 million and got no bites. Several months later it was sold for 2.1 million dollars to a campaign donor of hers. The sale was brokered by a Republican Legislator who also happened to have benefited from the same campaign donor. McCain is going around, today actually, and saying that Palin sold the plane on ebay FOR A PROFIT.2.7-2.1= a 600,000$ loss, unless this is another example of Republimath. Wow.
Palin has a Church-Pastor problem too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
But, I don’t know, the fact that she is a devout Evangelical leads me to believe, after seeing the praise heaped towards this kook, that she could do just about ANYTHING and get away with it, as long as she keeps the faith. There is an absolute mountain of controversy surrounding this woman that, till a week ago, most of you have NEVER heard of. Now you want her to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?
I can’t wrap myself around that without getting a little bit scared of how easily led we all must be.
And before the Obama attackers get all revved up and foaming at the mouth over this, save your saliva. I’m voting on PRINCIPLE. I plan on voting for Nader. If he weren’t running, it would be for Barr.Remember kids- PRINCIPLES. Ok, back to the grazing.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Kathryn- Even though she said “No Thanks” to the bridge and used the money elsewhere (where?), they still built the road out to where the bridge to nowhere was supposed to cross. How’s that for a great use of taxpayer dollars? BTW- Alaska gets the MOST Federal dollars back per capita than ANY other state in the Union.
None of that REALLY matters though, does it? Is there ANYTHING she could do to make you folks not support her? Ban books maybe?contained Bank
September 6th, 2008 at 11:26 am
She was also “for condoms before she was against them!”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-sexed6-2008sep06,0,3119305.story
The flip-flops run pretty deep here…
September 8th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Well, it looks as though the Democrats are going to try to use the issue.
They’re getting the usual help from the AP. Read the article now posted on the Sun’s web site that starts with: “LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin criticized Democrat Barack Obama over the amount of money he has requested for his home state of Illinois, even though Alaska under Palin’s leadership has asked Washington for 10 times more money per citizen for pet projects.”
Notice that all the way through the article, the “reporter” makes sure you know the Democrats’ view, while making some very strange statements.
For example, in that first paragraph, notice how the “reporter” states that Alaska asked for 10 times as much per citizen as Obama requested.
Then, ask yourself how many other senators and representatives are in Congress from Illinois, making requests for funding.
Finally, ask yourself why this “reporter” would make such a comparison, if it were not an Obama campaign talking point.
Would the comparison not look as dramatically different, if all the requests on behalf of Illinois were compared to all the requests from Alaska? Of course not — that’s why the AP compared one senator’s requests to an entire state delegation’s requests.
It’s similar to what I noticed in other articles, as I tried to learn what happened with the “bridge to nowhere.” Some “reporters” would compare amounts requested by Alaska to amounts received by other states. Why not compare received to received and requested to requested? Doesn’t it look quite the way the “reporters” want when apples are compared to apples?
Oh, well, let’s see how the Obama campaign handles it, now that they have decided to call Palin a liar:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/08/obama-campaign-calls-mccain-ad-a-lie/
Typically for the bumbling Democrats, they seem to have chosen to call her a liar because of a campaign ad which makes a completely true statement — Palin stopped the bridge project. Nothing about telling Congress “thanks, but no thanks.”
Palin stopped the project in Sept. 2007. By that time, most of the federal funding had already been used for other projects. Only $36 million of the original $223 million earmarked prior to Nov. 2005 remained. Apparently, her predecessor took advantage of the removal of that earmark in Nov. 2005 to make use of the lion’s share of the funding for more important things. Faced with a $398 million estimate for the bridge’s cost, Palin stopped the project.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
The McCain/Palin ticket will win the prize in the end.
I am so sure they will win I will bet six dinners at the best restaurant in KC and equal the total cost of the dinners as a donation toward a future Pulmonary Department at Harrison Medical Center.
Sharon O’Hara
September 9th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Here’s another article that states that Alaskans are angry over the “bridge to nowhere” comment and Palin’s flip flopping on the issue and inherent dishonesty in reporting the truth.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/palin-bridge-to-nowhere-line-angers-many/n20080901015209990004?ecid=RSS0001