Thursday, September 11, 2008

Bridge to Nowhere timeline....

Great timeline posted over on http://dailyhowler.com

OK! I have simplified it:

Summer 2005: Congress directs Alaska to build the bridge using federal funds.

November 2005: Congress rescinds the order for the bridge, allowing Alaska to keep the money and use it elsewhere.

November 2006:, Wasalia Mayor Sarah Palin, running for Governor, says she favors building the bridge.

September 2007: Palin cancels the bridge project, saying Congress wouldn't give any more
funds.

How this turns into 'I told Congress thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere' is quite the trick. It's a Rove-type trick: Grasp and distort the narrative which could hurt your candidate and turn it into a positive before your opponent can bring it up. To describe this with that tired old Kerryism 'She was for it before she was against it' (Oh, the cleverness!) is really a very poor argument*. What happened was that she took a pro-pork position in opposition to an anti-pork political firestorm. She was a maverick, all right - a pro-pork maverick! In fact, upon cancellation of this project her words suggest that she asked Congress for EVEN MORE PORK once the original funds were spent on other things!

*Not to mention, insulting to Kerry and the Democratic Brand. It's a capitulation to Republican efforts to turn Kerry's actions at the time, which were totally reasonable, into flip-flopism. Used this way, it describes Palin's actions, (lying about taking an action against something she actually favored), into mere flip-flopism.

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