Sarah Palin: Not Building Bridges

I've had a series of thoughts today, so there will be a series of posts.

First up... I'd like someone to explain to me how you can lobby strongly for something, reject it only when it becomes overwhelmingly unpopular in the rest of the country, still keep the money but spend it on something else, and claim that as evidence that you're "fighting pork" and a "fiscal reformer".

To me, that's like if I lobby my wife for months to be allowed to take $5000 of our savings and buy a large flat panel TV. I wheedle and I whine and I beg and finally she relents, so I go into the savings and withdraw $5000, but before I can buy the television, my parents or my friends get wind of the purchase and say "Look, I know you want this, but it really doesn't make good financial sense, that's the only $5000 you have in savings, you really shouldn't spend it on a TV". So I decide not to buy the TV, but I also don't put the $5000 back in savings, I just spend it on other stuff.

Can I then claim to be the guy that saved the family $5000 by not buying the TV, even though I still used the $5000?

That's what this Bridge to Nowhere fiasco is all about. The McCain campaign and VP candidate Sarah Palin are trying to sell her as this great spending reformer and as the one who personally killed the "Bridge to Nowhere" project, and yet she's on the record supporting it. She CAMPAIGNED in favor of it when running for the Governor's seat. And when it became abundantly clear that it was going to reflect poorly on her state (and only then) did she say "No, I don't think we're going to build that bridge", but her state kept the $200 million anyway.

What did they spend it on? No one seems to know. But I think we can fairly safely assume it was not other funded projects from the Congress (thus saving taxpayer's money by not requiring separate funding for those programs) or the campaign would be touting the specifics.

This is Sarah Palin's reformer legacy. Alaska got $200 million of our money, but because she didn't spend it on the bridge to nowhere, she's our fiscal protector. But she still kept our money.

Liam.