Matthews: Palin’s Bridge Line “Not Exactly True”

An example of Sarah Palin telling lie after lie right in front of God and everyone. She lies casually. Here’s what the Wall Street Journal had to say:

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.

A year ago, the governor issued a press release that the money for the project was being “redirected.”

“Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer,” she said. “Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.”

On Monday in Missouri, Gov. Palin put it this way: “I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere. If the state wanted to build a bridge we would built it ourselves.”

I bolded the parts where she’s saying things that are totally contradictory so the palinistas can find them. Read them carefully, because that is the definition of lying. The fact is she first complained about mean old McCain and company creating a bad public perception of the bridge, saying, they really needed it and she was going to fight for it. When it became clear they weren’t going to get any more money from the feds for it she diverted the money elsewhere. Then in the campaign she claimed that she saw it as a wasteful project and said “thanks but no thanks.” She didn’t kill the bridge until it became clear that Alaska would have to come up with some of the money on its own. That isn’t a “thanks, but no thanks. We can build it ourselves.” Far from it.

Here’s some more on Palin’s love of pork:

Before she left office, Wasilla, with aid of the lobbyist and the blessing of Stevens and Rep. Don Young, got $27 million in earmarks, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

During her fall 2006 campaign for governor, Palin appeared to embrace the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” even after Alaska had been held up for ridicule by McCain and others for what was seen as a wasteful boondoggle, a $233 million bridge that would replace ferry service connecting Gravina Island and its Ketchikan airport to mainland Ketchikan.

In a debate, Palin said she would fight for the earmark to build the bridge. McCain and others sought to divert those funds to help fund Hurricane Katrina recovery. That prompted a threat from Stevens to resign from the Senate for such discrimination against his state.

A year later, as criticism of earmarks mounted, Palin began to speak out against earmarks. Though she took the federal money to fund Alaska earmarks, she diverted the money for the Ketchikan bridge to other projects. She also issued a news release to alert the national press to her action.

Palin’s criticisms strained her relationship with Alaska’s congressional delegation because they were still receiving plenty of earmark requests that they were trying to push through a Democrat-controlled Congress. This year, in addition to the 31 submitted by Palin’s office, there were dozens submitted by smaller communities and borough governments.

“It really drove a wedge between her and the Alaska delegation,” Persily said. “She was branding them as irresponsible, and they felt like she was holding them up to public ridicule.”

Since she started out as the mayor of Wasilla Palin has been a major beggar for earmark cash. The state of Alaska is by far the biggest consumer of that money of any state in the US, but instead of spending oil revenue on projects like bridges the Alaska government doles out those funds to Alaskans while asking the rest of us to send them money to build infrastructure. It’s fascinating. Currently what has been dubbed the second “bridge to nowhere”, aka the Knik Arm Bridge is still in the works in Alaska.