Applesauce » Why does the McCain campaign keep repeating falsehoods about the Bridge to Nowhere?

Why does the McCain campaign keep repeating falsehoods about the Bridge to Nowhere?

September 8th, 2008 at 10:31am Pat Cunningham

Yeah, I know. The question in my headline is naive.

They persist with their FALSEHOODS about the Bridge to Nowhere because lots of people apparently believe them.

22 Comments Add your own

1. Milton Waddams | September 8th, 2008 at 10:34 am

Also rarely mentioned in her stopping the Bridge to Nowhere…the Federal government wasn’t going to pay for the entire cost, so she cancelled it and kept the money. That’s one way to balance a budget…
2. Kaus | September 8th, 2008 at 11:30 am

Pat also doesn’t want to talk about Obama’s ear marks that make the Bridge to Nowhere pale by comparison.
3. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 11:45 am

Kaus: When has Obama lied about earmarks as McCain and Palin have?
4. Peter Gunn | September 8th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Why does the McCain Campaign keep repeating falsehoods
about the Bridge to Nowhere ????

They’re Republicans, If they EVER told the truth about most ANYTHING they do
They’re Party would be and should be subjected to the RICO LAW designed to
take down Organized Crime, BushCo in Particular.

I’ve got a MUCH easier question by the way

What have the McCain Campaign and their surrogate Republican backers
Not Lied About ?
5. Uncle Bouncy | September 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Pat…please do some research before take credit for someone else’s lies

I wish I could take credit for this…but here is a well-researched response from an outside party (a Canadian) who is keeping track of the lies you guys are spreading about Sarah Palin.

The first piece of fiction floating around is Governor Palin was for the “Bridge to Nowhere” before being against it. Now BreaktheTerror thinks this will be “Kryptonite” to use against Palin during the election. Sure enough it does seem to hold water, well at least according to this story from ADN.com, but upon closer inspection, something didn’t sit right. Why would Governor Palin change her mind on this, let alone declare this apparent flip-flop as a victory on her part? Well it is quite simple, Palin supported it when he state only had to pay 40% of the project and was against it when Washington cut funding and forced Alaska to pay 80% of the more than 400 million dollars price tag. CNN actually did a fair and balanced story on this one, I suggest you take a look. There is also a Wikipedia page on this, but I decided to post the CNN link first for obvious reasons.

What happens is Republican Senators Ted Stevens and Doug Young purpose a big project to link Gravina Island to the more populated Revillagigedo Island. Also, the Republican senators stressed that this bridge was also important for the economy of the small community. Various senators voted for this project, including reportedly Joe Biden and it passed through Congress. Now, why is it called the “Bridge to Nowhere”? Well Gravina island has a population of 50, so a bridge to there hardly something worth over 400 million dollars, which is exactly what Washington thought. Under pressure to cut back on pork-barrel spending, this project was all but scrapped. Lacking the funds to complete it, Governor Palin decided to use the money for other things, and rather then spend 329 million dollars on top of the funds already raised for the project, she would put it to good use elsewhere. John McCain also supported her action on this project, citing the Minnesota bridge collapse which killed 13 as a sign that without a real effort to put a bridge up there, disaster could occur.

A flip-flop? Hardly, especially when we consider Barack Obama’s take on Public Financing.
6. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Bouncy: Your story doesn’t jibe with McCain’s and Palin’s claim that she told Congress “thanks but no thanks” on the bridge.

Here’s the story from a week ago Saturday on the campaign trail:

“I’ve championed reform to end the abuses of earmarked spending by Congress,” Palin said at a joint appearance with McCain in Washington, Pa., on Aug. 30. “And I did tell Congress, thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.”

McCain said Palin has “stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need. And when we in Congress decided to build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere for $233-million of yours, she said, we don’t want it. If we need it, we’ll build our own in Alaska. She’s the one that stood up to them.”

That doesn’t sound like the story you’re telling, Bouncy.
7. Uncle Bouncy | September 8th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Pat read it again…and tell me what contradicts what?

I understand your confusion, you can’t even keep up with your own party’s talking points…

read this:
Posted at 2:38 PM on 9/8/2008 by Michael Goldfarb
Dems Disappear Webpage…

…crediting Governor Palin with killing the Bridge to Nowhere:

We linked last week to a web page sponsored by the Alaska Democratic Party, which attacks Sen. Ted Stevens and credits Governor Sarah Palin for killing the Bridge to Nowhere. Our post is here.

Today, we learned that the web page has been pulled. National Democrats apparently want to rewrite history and say that Palin did not kill the Bridge to Nowhere. Fortunately, we saved a screen shot (below) of the page so the facts could not be buried.

This comes as the Obama campaign calls Governor Palin’s role in killing the Bridge to Nowhere a “lie.”

Here’s the link if you want to see the screen capture yourself:

http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=c3428a12-4d65-4cf2-b62a-79dac030376e
8. Chuck Sweeny | September 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Hey, Pat: I see Uncle Bouncy has migrated to your blog. Good. Could you please keep him?
9. Uncle Bouncy | September 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Just trying to keep you two honest

That’s not easy to do
10. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 4:09 pm

Chuck: Thanks for nothing. Do you wanna take Kaus and snuss off my hands? Or are they already plaguing you, too? (I read your posts more often than the comments on your site and consequently don’t know all the characters over there.)
11. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Getting back to the Bridge to Nowhere, the long and the short of it is that Palin was for it until it became a national joke. She never said to Congress “thanks but no thanks.” In fact, she took the money the feds had appropriated and used it for other pork projects of her own choosing. Some reformer she is. Her bubble might burst sooner than I had expected.
12. Muhranda | September 8th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

So what’s the link between Pallin and the alleged corrupt Senator Ted Stevens and this Bridge to Nowhere?
13. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

Muhranda: Ted Stevens was the principal advocate of the bridge project in the Senate, and Rep. Don Young of Alaska pushed it in the House. Stevens was indicted in July on unrelated matters. Stevens is running for re-election, and Palin has declined to say whether she’ll vote for him.
14. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

When Palin finally pulled the plug on the Bridge to Nowhere, the project already was dead for all practical purposes. And she sounded disappointed in her statement on the matter. The nonpartisan Web site PolitiFact has the story here:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/675/

Notice, please, the part where Palin says “it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island.” That belies her claim that she told Congress “thanks, but no thanks.” It was Congress that told her “no way.”
15. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

One more thing: In July, weeks before she got the call from McCain to be his running mate, Palin virtually admitted that her sudden turnabout on the subject of earmarks was prompted by the fact that both McCain and Obama were campaigning on earmarks reform. She was resigning herself to a new political reality. She it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgUDD_iT_F0&eurl=http://www.jedreport.com/
16. Menlo Bob | September 8th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

Comment 1. is right. Therefore, she stopped the Gravina Island bridge project. Next.
17. Menlo Bob | September 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

Projects of this type weren’t raising the ire of Democrats until they wanted to direct money away from a Republican state and towards hurricane Katrina construction projects–New Orleans itself is a toilet money is thrown into–Robert Byrd must have half the buildings in West Virginia named after his largess. Once the stink was on the Gravina Island bridge–by noting that few people lived on the island, which was beside the point because the bridge was intended to spur development, the money was redirected for use as highway funds without specifying its use. At that point Palin asked for affordable alternatives to the bridge.
18. Pat Cunningham | September 8th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Bob: None of this changes the fact that Palin lied about her position concerning the bridge. She never told Congress “thanks, but no thanks” or anything like it. Congress had pretty much killed the project when she finally developed a profound grasp of the obvious. She’s a former queen of pork pretending to have been a vegetarian all along. As mayor of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist to get federal earmarks and frequently went to Washington herself in search of federal goodies. C’mon, Bob. We weren’t all born yesterday.
19. Billybeermonicagar | September 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Since when did we all become all high and mighty against earmarks.I can remember hearing and reading criticism about our local elected officials and their lack of ‘bringing home the bacon’ for our area.
20. Menlo Bob | September 9th, 2008 at 2:45 am

Pat, “Thanks but no thanks” does indeed imply that the money was not accepted. Neither you nor I know exactly what was said to congress and so it would be premature to say she lied. She may well not have said anything and it thereby could be a lie. In the end the bridge was stopped both by the financial realities as well as by action by the governor. Would you care to argue about the use of federal highway funds for Alaska?
21. Uncle Bouncy | September 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am

Pat…your tag-team lie wtih Barry and Joe is failing…

UPDATE: (Via InstaPundit.) Obama and Biden both voted to spend federal money on the bridge rather than use the money to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. This isn’t because they actually thought it was a good idea, of course. It’s because they are part and parcel of the corrupt earmark system and wanted to preserve their ability to direct money to their own pet projects without any accountability.

This is typical of Obama. He has never worked for reform, never tried to change the way the Senate operates, never rocked the boat in any way. He is a go along/get along careerist, and if that means voting for the Bridge to Nowhere rather than hurricane relief, no problem.
22. Peter Gunn | September 9th, 2008 at 8:31 am

Palin Lied

And as V.P Palin Which would shortly turn into President Palin, Will lie again.

Interesting how these Fundies can tell the whole world how to live while snubbing the word of God.

They’re own playbook, Just ask em
They’ll tell ya.

So what it comes down too is this

Palin was AGAINST lying like a dog while telling Jesus to stuff it

Before she was FOR lying like a dog while telling Jesus to stuff it

Typical Fundy Philosophy,
The Rules are for others

Cause the End justifies the Means, And Jesus just Loves Republican Fundies

Look at his life according to the New Testament

Now, Don’t all Republican Fundies mimic that walk by standing up for the Poor while rebuking the Greedy Rich ???