Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to NoWhere - and lied about it

Are you wondering whether Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska?
WAPO says Palin is lying:" Palin did at one time support the Bridge to Nowhere, and the $223 million earmarked for the project was sent to Alaska. Some of it was used for other state projects, about $40 million was used to build an access road to the now-scrapped bridge project and $73 million is sitting in an account, awaiting some other proposal to link the tiny towns of Ketchikan and Gravina, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation."
Palin and McCain are resurrecting a strategy from the Karl Rove script that accused McCain's middle school daughter of being a bastard child from a liaison with a black prostitute to win the South Carolina primary in 2000. "We have created a system where there is not a lot of shame in stretching the truth," said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

USAToday has uncovered quotes from 2006 when Sarah Palin was still Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
“We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge, and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,” Palin said in August
2006, according to the Ketchikan Daily News.

The Anchorage Daily News quoted her in October 2006 as saying she would continue state funding for the bridge. “The window is now, while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist,” she said.

Asked why she supported the bridge, Palin’s communications director Bill McAlister said, “It was never at the top of her priority list, and in fact the project isn’t necessarily dead … there’s still the potential for improved ferry service or even a bridge of a less costly design.”

Wasilla, which in 2007 had 9,780 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, hired a lobbyist in 2000, public records show, paying him about $36,000 per year. In 2001, Palin was quoted in a local newspaper crediting Silver with helping secure federal funding for Wasilla.

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