While visiting Alaska, Sarah Palin dropped the (inaccurate) line in her stump speech highlighting her opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, presumably because everyone there knows that it isn’t true. Once she returned to the lower 48 the line reappeared, despite her embarrassing interview with Charlie Gibson last week in which she was basically forced to admit that she hadn’t been quite forthright about her role in the bridge’s demise.
Palin told Gibson that what she supported “the link between a community and its airport. And we have found that link now.” Palin is presumably referring to a cheaper bridge still in the works, that would link Ketchikan and its airport on Gravina Island.
In her stump speech, Palin is fond of saying that “If the state wanted to build a bridge we would built it ourselves.” Alaska may be building it, but according to Paul Kiel at ProPublica, federal taxpayers are paying for at least $73 million of it, originally earmarked by Rep. Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens for the first bridge to nowhere.
So it’s not really accurate to say the bridge is dead, and it was never accurate to say Palin killed it.
–A. Serwer