Puffin’s Place

If you believe John McCain’s boast that Sarah Palin stopped the $400m bridge to nowhere between Katchikan and Gravina Island, you have not yet listened to those who were there then and are there now.

According to columnist Dermot Cole today in the Fairbanks News-Miner:

In her introductory speech Friday as McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin picked up on the Ketchikan bridge that was never built as a symbol of bad federal policy.

“I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress,” Palin said at her first campaign appearance. “In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves.”

That is not how Palin described her position on the Gravina Island bridge when she ran for governor in 2006.

On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News asked Palin and the other candidates, “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?”

Her response: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”

. . . .

The money was not sent back to the federal government, but spent on other projects.

That was hardly “Thanks but no thanks.”

So there we are. And McCain did not know all of this when he picked her for VP? The woman who lusted for earmarks can also lie. A sure and sound sign that McCain has the judgment to be president.