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Mediamatters.Org - On the August 31 broadcast
of Fox News Sunday, host Chris
Wallace did not challenge Sen. John McCain's claim that his presumptive
running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, opposed the "bridge to
nowhere" project in Alaska.
McCain told Wallace: "We fought against, frankly, the same adversaries,
the same challenges. Look, we
couldn't get the bridge to nowhere out, although we tried. People like [Sen.] Tom
Coburn [R-OK] and me. ... She
[Palin], as governor, stood up and said,
'We don't need it. And if we need it, we'll pay for it ourselves.'
" But Wallace did
not note that during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Palin reportedly supported
the proposal to build a bridge between
Ketchikan, Alaska, and Gravina Island and suggested that Alaska's congressional
delegation should continue to try to procure funding for the project, which was authorized
by the federal government in 2005 but never appropriated.
By contrast, when Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-SC) asserted on the August 31 broadcast of ABC's This Week that Palin "has done
things that [Sen.] Barack
Obama would never dream of,
to go in her state and
say, 'I'm not going to build a bridge to
nowhere,' " host George Stephanopoulos responded: " But, Senator, she turned
against that only --
she campaigned for it in her 2006 race and turned against it in 2007 only after
it became a national joke."
Additionally, Wallace did not challenge McCain's
assertion that he doesn't
"particularly enjoy the label 'maverick,' " even though
McCain released a TV ad
-- approved by McCain --
declaring him to be
"the original maverick."
Contrary to McCain's claim that Palin said of the
bridge, "We don't need it. And if we need it, we'll pay for it
ourselves," in a questionnaire published in the October 22, 2006, Anchorage Daily News
(accessed from the Nexis database), then-gubernatorial candidate Palin answered
the question, "Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm
and Gravina Island bridges?" by writing: "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."
Additionally, Palin reportedly addressed the issue at an October 4, 2006, gubernatorial forum hosted by Alaska Conservation Voters. An October 5,
2006, Anchorage Daily
News article provided the following account of a question and Palin's
response at the forum:
As for the infamous "bridges to
nowhere," [debate moderator Steve] MacDonald asked if the candidates would
forge ahead with the proposed Knik Arm crossing between Anchorage and Point
MacKenzie and Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge. Each has received more than
$90 million in federal funding and drew nationwide attacks as being unnecessary
and expensive. He also asked if they support building an access road from Juneau toward -- but not completely connecting to -- Skagway and Haines.
"I do support the
infrastructure projects that are on tap here in the state of Alaska that our congressional delegations
worked hard for," Palin said. She said the projects link communities and
create jobs.
Still, Palin warned that the flow of
federal money into the state for such projects is going to slow.
Alaskans for Truth in Politics, a 527
group whose mission is "to inform Alaska's residents with comprehensive political
information needed to make critical voting decisions and to monitor and archive
all political action and discussion in the state of Alaska," provides a transcript of what it said
was the specific question McDonald asked the candidates during the forum:
They've
been dubbed the bridges to nowhere. Federal Government has given AK millions of
dollars to begin planning and building a bridge across knik arm fjords and
another bridge to gravina island. Also, the Murkowski administration wants to
build a road from Juneau out along Glen Canal,
with better access to Skagway
and Haines. As Governor would you go along with these projects?
The website also provides video
of what it said was Palin's response to the question:
Well, I do support the infrastructure projects that are on tap
here in the state of Alaska
that our congressional delegation has worked hard for. Provisions -- anyway, seed money
that is coming into this state for these projects. Linkages between our communities,
links to access, to potential, to opportunity that should lead to good jobs,
ultimately, for Alaskans, that's what these infrastructure projects are to be provided
as: tools run by the government for the private sector, for our families to be able to grow and thrive, and that's the
purpose of these infrastructure projects. I do agree, though, with both
candidates here and their concerns about the priorities, the dollars that are
not going to be free-flowing in such a generous, liberal amount, from the feds,
as we've been so blessed with in the past. But that's reality. We won't be seeing that flow of money
to the degree that we have, is my prediction. So, it's going to take a matter of working with the
legislature, those who hold the purse strings
here in the state of Alaska -- not working against the legislature, but working
with them -- to prioritize state dollars to be used in
addition to the federal dollars. But I do support infrastructure projects here
in the state.
Further, in a September 21, 2007, press release,
Palin specifically cited the unwillingness of Congress to provide sufficient funds for the
project -- "[d]espite the work of our
congressional delegation" -- in explaining why she had
"directed the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to look
for the most fiscally responsible alternative for access to the Ketchikan
airport and Gravina Island instead of proceeding any further with the proposed
$398 million bridge":
"Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the
airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," said Governor
Palin. "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," Governor
Palin added. "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."
In an August 31 article
headlined "Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't
note flip-flop,"
the Anchorage Daily News
reported:
When John McCain introduced Gov.
Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded
budget-cutter was front and center.
"I told Congress, thanks but no
thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd,
referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island
bridge.
But Palin was for the Bridge to
Nowhere before she was against it.
The Alaska
governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she
felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still
feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the
bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which
they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines.
[...]
In September, 2006, Palin showed up
in Ketchikan on
her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's
prosperity.
She said she could feel the town's
pain at being derided as a "nowhere" by prominent politicians, noting
that her home town, Wasilla, had recently been insulted by the state Senate
president, Ben Stevens.
"OK, you've got Valley trash
standing here in the middle of nowhere," Palin said, according to an
account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I think we're going to make a good
team as we progress that bridge project."
One year later, Ketchikan's Republican leaders said they were
blindsided by Palin's decision to pull the plug.
Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow
said Saturday that as projected costs for the Ketchikan
bridge rose to nearly $400 million, administration officials were telling Ketchikan that the
project looked less likely. Local leaders shouldn't have been surprised when
Palin announced she was turning to less-costly alternatives, Leighow said.
Indeed, Leighow produced a report quoting Palin, late in the governor's race,
indicating she would also consider alternatives to a bridge.
In addition, in assessing
Palin's August 29 claim that
"I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to
nowhere," PolitiFact.com
reported:
The project also raised bitter
debate in Congress, and several attempts were made to yank the funding for the
project. In the fall of 2005, Congress removed the language specifically
directing the money to the bridge, but it kept the money in place and left it
up to Alaska
to decide which transportation projects the state would like to spend it on.
By the time Palin pulled the plug on
the Gravina bridge project in September 2007, much of the federal funding for
the bridge had already been diverted to other transportation projects.
[...]
When Palin says "I told
Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere,"
it implies Congress said, "Here's a check for that bridge"
and she responded, "No thanks, that's wasteful spending;
here's your money back."
That's not what happened. Fact is, Alaska took the bridge
money, and then just spent it on other projects. Palin did make the final call
to kill plans for the bridge, but by the time she did it was no longer a
politically viable project.
From the August 31 broadcast
of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s
Fox News Sunday:
WALLACE: Let's start with your
choice of a running mate. Of all the people you could have chosen, of all the Republicans
leaders you've
known for years --
straight talk -- can
you honestly say that Sarah Palin is the best person to put a heartbeat away
from the presidency?
McCAIN: Oh, yeah. She's a partner
and a soul mate. She -- she's a reformer. I
don't particularly enjoy the label "maverick," but when somebody
takes on the old bulls in her own party, runs against an incumbent governor of her own party, stands up
against the oil and gas interests --
I mean, they really are
so vital to the economy of her -- of the state of Alaska.
I mean, it's remarkable. It's a
remarkable person, and
I've watched her
record and I've
watched her for many, many years as she implemented ethics in lobbying reforms.
And, I mean, she led on
it. She didn't just vote for it.
She led it. I've seen her take on
her own party.
Look, one thing I know is that when
you take on your own party in Washington,
you pay a price for it. You do. You pay a price for it. And she's taken on the
party in her own state. She take --
she took on a sitting governor and defeated him. And so
I've -- I'm so pleased and proud because this is a person who will
help me reform Washington
and change the way they do business. And that's what Americans want.
WALLACE: But let me ask you --
McCAIN: Sure.
WALLACE: -- about the
concerns that a lot of voters --
McCAIN: Sure.
WALLACE: -- who had
never heard of Sarah Palin before yesterday are asking. Compared to, say, Tom Ridge
or Joe Lieberman, why is Governor Palin superior in dealing with national
security and foreign policy?
[...]
WALLACE: You talked to her on the
phone last Sunday, and you met with her face-to-face -- face-to-face
for the first time to discuss the vice-presidential
pick Thursday morning, and then you offered her the job. Must have been a heck
of a meeting.
McCAIN: Well, the fact is, I've been watching her. I mean, look,
what she's been doing in Alaska -- let's have some straight
talk -- has affected
the representation in Washington,
D.C. We fought against, frankly,
the same adversaries, the same challenges. Look, we couldn't get the bridge to nowhere
out, although we tried. People like Tom Coburn and me --
WALLACE: This is the big pork-barrel project.
McCAIN: Yeah, the pork-barrel project. Two hundred and thirty-three million
dollar bridge in Alaska to an island with
50 people on it. She,
as governor, stood up
and said, "We don't need it. And if we need it, we'll pay for it
ourselves." Now that's, that's guts. I saw that, and I said,
"This, this is what we need in Washington."
WALLACE: Senator, I want to turn to
the Democratic convention.
From the August 31 broadcast of ABC's This Week
with George Stephanopoulos:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But is she ready to
serve on Day One? It
sounds like you're
shifting the criteria.
GRAHAM: No, I think so, I think so. Compared
to Barack Obama,
absolutely. She has done things that Barack Obama would never dream of, to go in her state and say, "I'm not going to build a bridge to
nowhere." A four hundred dollar
-- million dollar appropriation
that was passed by brute force in the Congress between two senior members of the congressional delegation, very powerful figures in Washington, and for her to say to the
citizens of Alaska, "We're not going to do this, 'cause this is not necessary, and it's wasteful -- to take on your own Republican Party" --
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, she turned against that only -- she campaigned for it in
her 2006 race and turned against it in 2007 only after it became a national
joke.
GRAHAM: Well, the point is that she
had the courage to say, "We're not going to do it because
it's not the
right signal we want to send everybody else from Alaska." She took on the Republican Party chairman and called him
unethical; she took on the attorney general who eventually resigned because he
was doing things that were inappropriate.
I'm in politics. I voted against the bridge
to nowhere. I was one
of 14. It scared the heck out of me
because I knew what was going to come my way. I can't imagine being the
governor of the state and telling the people who were able to secure the bridge, "We're not going to do it."
Media Matters - Wallace did not challenge McCain's claim that Palin said of "bridge to nowhere": "We don't need it. And if we need it, we'll pay for it ourselves" {...} On Fox News Sunday , Sen. John McCain said that regarding the "bridge to nowhere" project, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "stood up and said, 'We don't need it. And if we need it, we'll pay for it ourselves.' " Chris Wallace did not note in response that during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Palin reportedly supported the proposal to build a bridge between Ketchikan, Alaska, and Gravina Island and suggested that Alaska's congressional delegation should continue to try to procure funding for the project. {...} Published: September 1, 2008, 12:59 am - Indexed: September 1, 2008, 1:47 pm - Page Size: 34KB |