Palin's Road To Nowhere

The bridge debunked. Now the road.

McCain Thinks Americans Are Stupid

McCain counts on the stupidity of Americans while Obama is counting on their intelligence. Everywhere Obama goes, he says the American people are smart and won't get fooled again. Which America will win out?

McCain is hoping that his blatant lies won't penetrate the minds of Americans. He hired a walking lie -- Sarah Palin -- to act as if she's a smart energy expert, who is experienced in foreign policy because she can see Russia from Alaska. She said "Thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere." Anyone who believes that is stupid, or shall we say misinformed or uninformed. There's too much information out there and we should ALL know better.

If you're going to vote for McCain, vote for the real McCain. 

McCain's camp is counting on the ignorance of racists (or those nervous that if they vote for a black man, he'll put a Big Black Agenda into place) to help lure voters his way, nudging them with ads that exploit race ever so subtley.

After the collapse of the financial markets, blame for which can be placed squarely on republican's economic philosophy -- give more to the most and hope that it trickles down -- free markets are best, they'll regulate themselves -- you'd think people would be taking a second look at Obama. We shall see.

McCain is counting on Americans not being able to connect the dots. Republican leadership = disaster, the near catastrophic economic and political conditions that we're facing now. McCain's counting on them not knowing his history with Phil Gramm and McCain's love of deregulation. McCain is counting on them never having heard him admit he's not up on economics. McCain believes that if he changes his campaign slogan, then people will believe that he's a change agent.

McCain is counting on people not knowing enough about lobbyists and how much they influence government or how his lobbyist adviser Randy Schuenemann lobbied on behalf of Georgia. He's counting on Americans equating good soldier with good leader. He's counting on them thinking that Obama is elitist while McCain, with 7, 8, or 9 houses, is not. He's counting on them not knowing that he wants to deregulate the health insurance industry like the banking sector. He's counting on them not having seen any YouTube videos, where McCain gets all hot headed, where McCain talks about how much he loves Bush, where he eats cake on his birthday with George, while people were stranded on rooftops in New Orleans. McCain's counting on people not knowing that he's always voted against clean energy and technology.

McCain hired Palin to connect with the "values voter" and the low information voter, the ones who wouldn't vote for a black man, the PUMAs, the ones who don't have enough information to make an informed decision, so they vote for the person who is like them. Palin hunts moose. I hunt duck. Palin has a pregnant teen. I have a pregnant teen. Palin believes in that the Iraq war -- fighting Islam -- is God's plan. I believe that Islam is bad, and isn't Obama a Muslim? Palin speaks with a down home charm about fightin' and fixin'. Hey, so do I. Palin's a hockey mom. I'm a soccer mom. Palin doesn't believe in abortion. Isn't Obama a live baby killer? Palin believes that children shouldn't read about gay people. I believe gay people are sinners. Palin is hot. I wish I was hot. Palin has some great red shoes. I'm going to get a pair of those great red shoes and the glasses to match. Palin is popular. I wish I was popular.

I'm sorry but after getting so much new information about Palin, you'd be a dummy not to recognize that she's clueless. Utterly clueless. McCain picked her to be second in command. What does this say about McCain? About what he thinks of Americans? But McCain's counting on Americans to be charmed. Sadly, women are being exploited by the republican party.

The smart republicans aren't fooled. They know Palin is a tool. They're mad at McCain because he's acting the fool, pretending to be someone he's not. He's pretending to be Obama. McCain even hired someone he thought was like Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama says Americans know better and they're hungry for change. Fingers crossed. 

McCain called unpresidential.

Obama Press Memo on McCain's Lies

Wheeeeeeeeee! I hope you're all strapped in. While the Straight Talk Express has fallen over a cliff, Obama's traveling on the highway of truth. When you think about it, Palin-McCain have lied about everything. The question is: does anyone care about truth? 

To: Press Corps
From: Obama Campaign
Re: Unraveling the myth of the Straight Talk Express
Since naming Governor Palin as their Vice Presidential nominee, the McCain campaign has distorted, distracted, and outright lied to the American people about her record in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that a McCain/Palin Administration would be nothing more than a continuation of the failed Bush policies of the last eight years.
Indeed, today alone we learned that the McCain campaign’s claim that Governor Palin traveled to Iraq is a lie. In fact, she didn’t cross the Kuwait border. We learned that the McCain campaign is desperate enough to tell the press phony crowd numbers, which they falsely attributed to local elected officials and the United States Secret Service. And we learned that despite Senator McCain’s claim that Governor Palin is a fiscal conservative, spending actually increased during her brief tenure as Governor.
Here are the facts. Governor Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere, requested hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks, never visited Iraq, increased spending as governor, increased taxes as governor, and was about as successful selling that luxury jet on eBay as the McCain campaign has been selling her reputation as a reformer. Oh yeah, and the gas pipeline she touts won’t be usable for at least a decade, if it’s completed at all.
While the media is slowly starting to call the McCain campaign on their dishonest tactics, McCain’s staff boasts that they don’t care. As a McCain spokesman told the Politico, “We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”
To help you cut through their lies and spin, below are the facts you need to set the record straight.
McCain Myth: Palin Visited Troops In Iraq
FACT: Palin Did Not Venture Further Into Iraq Than It’s Border With Kuwait
“In The Second Official Revision Of Her Only Trip Outside North America,” Palin Aides Concede That Her 2007 Visit To Iraq “Consisted Of A Brief Stop At A Border Crossing.” “Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America. Following her selection last month as John McCain’s running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a ‘military outpost’ inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin’s foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone. But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as ‘K-Crossing,’ on July 25, 2007.It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called ‘the trip of a lifetime.’ Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
McCain Myth: McCain’s Appearance Drew Crowd of 23,000 to Event
FACT: Crowd-Size Estimates Provided By Campaign Aides Not Backed By Officials.
Bloomberg: “McCain-Plain Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed By Officials.” “Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can’t substantiate the figures McCain’s aides are claiming. McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal. Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events. . The McCain campaign said 10,000 people showed up at the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania, home of the Washington Wild Things baseball team. The campaign attributed that estimate, and several that followed, to U.S. Secret Service figures, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers. ‘We didn’t provide any numbers to the campaign,’ said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service. Wiley said he would not ‘confirm or dispute’ the numbers the McCain campaign has given to reporters.” [Bloomberg, 9/13/08 > ]
McCain Myth: Palin Is a Fiscal Conservative
FACT: Palin Has Grown Government in Her Time as Executive of Both Alaska And Wasilla
Boston Globe: “Fueled by Oil Taxes, Alaska Spending Soared Under Palin.” “Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska has also presided over a dramatic increase in state spending in the last two years. Still, she can accurately claim that her state is in good fiscal health, thanks to an explosion of revenues from state taxes on oil industry profits. Indeed, in her 20 months in office, Palin’s toughest financial decisions involved dickering with the Legislature on creative ways to spend and salt away the billions of dollars in oil revenues pouring into the state treasury.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
· In Two Budget Cycles, Palin Only Vetoed $2.6 Million In Spending Requests For Alaska’s $8.1 Billion Operating Budget - Which Has Increased 30 Percent In Two Years. “.in two budget cycles, Palin has vetoed a total of only $2.6 million in spending requests for the state’s now $8.1 billion annual operating budget, which, according to an analysis by the legislative finance office, has increased about 30 percent in two years. The increase figure includes the one-time energy rebate checks but no increases in reserve accounts or any capital expenditures. It also doesn’t include a supplemental appropriation for additional expenditures, which is routine. Last year, the supplemental budget was more than $4 billion, mostly deposits in reserve accounts when revenues continued to pour in at high levels.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
Wasilla’s Total Government Expenditures Increased 63 Percent Under Palin. In fiscal 2003-the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget-the total government expenditures of Wasilla, excluding capital outlays, were $7,046,325. In fiscal 1996-the year before Palin took control of the budget-the expenditures were $4,317,947. The increase was 63 percent. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 1]
McCain Myth: Palin Has Succeeded in Signing a Deal to Build Alaska’s Long-Stalled Gas Pipeline
FACTS: High Gas Prices Have Given Alaska a Huge Windfall, Passed on to Alaskans Like Sarah Palin in Huge Dividend Checks - And Palin Has Backed Shipping Alaskan Natural Gas to Asia
Palin Touts Her Pipeline Deal, But It Has Not been Started, Would Take Years to Complete and Could Never Happen, Costing Taxpayers $500 Million for Nothing. “When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success. The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.” [New York Times, 9/13/08 ]
· Republican Lawmaker Worried Alaska Bargained Away Too Much Leverage, Has No Agreement to “Lift One Shovel of Dirt or Lay Down One Inch of Steel.” “As Ms. Palin takes to the road to campaign with Mr. McCain, invoking the pipeline as a major victory, some Alaska lawmakers who initially endorsed her plan now believe it was a mistake. State Senator Bert Stedman, a Republican who is co-chairman of the finance committee, said that in its contract with the chosen developer, TransCanada, the state bargained away too much leverage with little guarantee of success. ‘There is no requirement to lift one shovel of dirt or lay down one inch of steel,’ he said.” [New York Times, 9/13/08 ]
McCain Myth: Palin’s Energy Experience Will Lower Gas Prices and Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil
FACTS: High Gas Prices Have Given Alaska a Huge Windfall, Passed on to Alaskans Like Sarah Palin in Huge Dividend Checks - And Palin Has Backed Shipping Alaskan Natural Gas to Asia
Thanks To “Soaring Oil Prices And A Higher Windfall Oil Profits Tax,” Alaska’s State Coffers Are “Overflowing With Petrodollars.” “Soaring oil prices and a higher windfall oil profits tax - an increase pushed through by Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee - have state coffers overflowing with petrodollars. The Alaska oil industry calculates that its annual payments to the state doubled in a single year to $10.2 billion.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
· Every Alaskan Receiving $1,200 From The State, Along With Annual Check From The Permanent Fund, Which Is A Record $2,069 Per Resident This Year - Palin Family Eligible For $19,000. “And Alaska residents are getting their cut. Starting this week, every Alaskan who has lived in the state more than a year will receive $1,200 from the state, a total of about $756 million in rebates to offset high energy costs in the 49th state. That’s on top of the perennial check each will receive from the state’s oil revenue-endowed Permanent Fund, this year a record $2,069 per resident. The large Palin family is eligible to receive more than $19,000 from the combined payments.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
Palin Backed A Two-Year Extension Of The Export License To Export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) To Japan And Other Asian Countries-Criticized Because Alaska’s Gas Reserves Are Declining. “Alaska producers can continue shipping gas to Asia after DOE last week approved an extension of the export license for the Kenai liquefied natural gas plant owned by ConocoPhillips and Marathon. The companies will be allowed to export up to 98.1 Bcf to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries over a two-year period through March 31, 2011. [.] The application came under fire from local end-users, including gas distribution companies Enstar and the Chugach Electric Association, as well as fertilizer maker Agrium, all of which claimed the exports would exacerbate the problem of declining gas reserves in south-central Alaska. Agrium permanently closed its plant near Kenai due to an inability to find enough local supply for the facility that used 53 Bcf/year. In January, ConocoPhillips and Marathon reached a deal in which they agreed to step up development in the Cook Inlet region in return for the state’s support of the export license extension. The producers also agreed to divert gas from the LNG plant as needed to meet the peak winter supply needs of the local utilities. [.] Alaska Governor Sarah Palin welcomed the DOE approval. “In these times of economic uncertainty, this is great news for the state and its residents. This extension will secure a future for the LNG operation and is another step toward ensuring energy supplies and energy security for Alaska,” the Republican governor said. [Platts Inside FERC, 6/9/08]
McCain Palin Myth: Sarah Palin Told Congress “Thanks But No Thanks” On That Bridge to Nowhere
FACT: Palin Was Before It Before She Was Against It - Kept the Money for Other Projects
Politifact: Palin’s Stance On “The Bridge To Nowhere” Is “A Full Flop.” Politfact, a service of CQ and the St. Petersburg Times wrote, “McCain said Palin has ’stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need. And when we in Congress decided to build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere for $233-million of yours, she said, we don’t want it. If we need it, we’ll build our own in Alaska. She’s the one that stood up to them.’ Nevermind that Alaska didn’t give the money back. It spent the money on other transportation projects. The context of Palin’s and McCain’s recent statements suggest Palin flagged the so-called Bridge to Nowhere project as wasteful spending. But that’s not the tune she was singing when she was running for governor, particularly not when she was standing before the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce asking for their vote. And so, we rate Palin’s position a Full Flop.” [Politifact ] more, more, more. 

McCain's Bold Lies New Lows in Politics

After Palin's interview last night, I guess we know why the McCain camp needs to lie. Kudos to Charlie Gibson for asking some tough questions.

NYT: Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” — she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”

Obama Says Spare Me

This is beautiful. Spare me. The republicans have been on a mission for at least a year with its email smear campaign calling Obama a Muslim terrorist. Not just republicans, but Ms. Mooseburger's brand of republicans, the wingnut extremists. 

Facts don't matter. Palin-McCain have been hammering the Bridge to Nowhere lie without pause and Ms. Mooseburger has been dishing it out in ding dong ditch style. She needs to start eating the mud she's slinging.

How do we get even? We register people to vote. 

CNN: "Spare me the phony outrage. Spare me the phony talk about change," Obama said at the start of an education event in Norfolk, Virginia.

"We have real problems in this country right now. The American people are looking to us for answers, not distractions, not diversions, not manipulations. They want real answers to the real problems we are facing.

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift boat politics. Enough is enough," he said, referring to how Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched attacks against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.

Debunking Palin's Bridge to Nowhere Lie

I'm not sure if anyone really cares about candidates lying.

Anyway, I imagine Ms. Mooseburger will either prove or disprove herself in the upcoming debates. On NPR this morning, Juan Williams said she's spending a lot of face time with McCain, getting to know what he believes. She's also boning up quickly on foreign affairs. Don't count on ABC to bring a hard-hitting interview, especially while she's on her turf in Alaska. All she has to do is pat Trig or hunt a moose or make a mooseburger, maybe event take aim from a helicopter, and everyone will be happy. Because those are the important things.
Here's the debunking part. Note she got the money for the bridge to nowhere because she originally supported it and after she stopped supporting it, she kept the money, using it for other things. Her bridge to nowhere is a bold lie. Another attempt on the part of the republicans that if you say something enough times it becomes truth:

Though Palin recently came out against the completion of the Gravina Island Bridge, she initially supported the project as governor before it became a national symbol of wasteful pork barrel spending. In 2007, Palin’s office cancelled work on the bridge, but Alaska still kept the federal funds that were allocated for state transportation projects.

:

NUMEROUS INDEPENDENT SOURCES HAVE DEBUNKED GOVERNOR PALIN'S CLAIMS

Wall Street Journal Headline: "Record Contradicts Palin's 'Bridge' Claims." "The Bridge to Nowhere argument isn't going much of anywhere. Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government 'thanks but no thanks' to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state… But Gov. Palin's claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere." [Wall Street Journal, 9/9/08]

Chicago Tribune Blog: "The McCain-Palin Campaign Keeps Up the Misleading Line That She Was the Main Palyer in Taking Out the Bridge." "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin keeps saying she stopped the infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere' in an attempt to burnish her credentials as a pork-fighting reformer. And reporters keep pointing out that her claim is exaggerated. Still, the McCain-Palin campaign keeps up the misleading line that she was the main player in taking out the bridge. And still reporters keep shedding light on the inexactness, to put it politely, of that claim. One of the latest journalistic efforts to separate fact from fiction comes from PolitFact, a service of the St. Pete Times and CQ. Yet, the McCain campaign has cut a TV ad that pushes the line that Palin stopped the bridge. It's as if they've decided to go with that first two parts of that famous Lincoln quote: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time...'" [Chicago Tribune Blog, 9/9/08]

Factcheck.org: Congress Had All But Killed Bridge to Nowhere When Palin Killed It, Was Sharp Turnaround From Position During Gubernatorial Campaign. "Palin may have said "Thanks, but no thanks" on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure." [Factcheck.org, 9/4/08]

Politifact: Palin's Stance On "The Bridge To Nowhere" Is "A Full Flop." Politfact, a service of CQ and the St. Petersburg Times wrote, "McCain said Palin has 'stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money on things they don't want or need. And when we in Congress decided to build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere for $233-million of yours, she said, we don't want it. If we need it, we'll build our own in Alaska. She's the one that stood up to them.' Nevermind that Alaska didn't give the money back. It spent the money on other transportation projects. The context of Palin's and McCain's recent statements suggest Palin flagged the so-called Bridge to Nowhere project as wasteful spending. But that's not the tune she was singing when she was running for governor, particularly not when she was standing before the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce asking for their vote. And so, we rate Palin's position a Full Flop." [Politifact] More

Palin Learned Earmark Reform From Obama

Palin got her earmark lesson from Obama and McCain. Obama stated long ago that he has taken earmarks, far less than Ms. Mooseburger, but moving forward, he said he would no longer. Just as Ms. Mooseburger states in this video.
So we're really all square on this earmark issue. But I think we can hammer Ms. earmark a bit more, since she wasn't properly vetted in the first place. Can't wait to hear what she says--not her blockers -- about why she changed her mind about earmarks. Do you think she'll mention this?

Palin Pick Opens Questions About McCain's Marbles

Wasilla mooseburgers. Don't they make you want to get your gun? Below: Hunters who did just that. They're going to have some moose burgers. I think Palin lost the PETA vote.

Finally, we get something other than -- what a great thing a teenager is pregnant and she's keeping her baby!!!! 
I guess it took a day for people to gather their bearings. Is McCain trying to hoodwink us? Is he rolling the dice? Did he truly think Palin was a good pick? Did Palin hoodwink McCain? Maybe there's an ultimate plot, some sort of logic? Oil? 

RCP: Indeed, if you don't get hung up on her actual record, Palin simply is who she is. It's not her fault that she's a former Miss Wasilla with a campy "Northern Exposure" vibe, doctrinaire social-conservative views and no discernible qualifications for being vice president. It's undeniable that people in Alaska apparently like her well enough, though they seem to have been even more shocked than the rest of us when she was named to the Republican ticket. In any event, she's not the one who created this farcical situation.

We learned last week that John McCain is not who he is -- not, at least, who he claims to be. The steady, straight-talking, country-first statesman his campaign has been selling is a fictional character. The real McCain is either alarmingly cynical or dangerously reckless.

You will recall that McCain gave the same prime criterion for choosing a running mate that every presidential candidate gives: someone who is ready to step in as president if, heaven forbid, the need arises. Barack Obama echoed those words before picking Joe Biden, who is about as prepared as a vice presidential candidate could ever be.

You will also recall that McCain and his supporters have been lecturing us about the grave and urgent dangers our country faces -- Islamic fundamentalism, the resurgence of Russia and other geopolitical threats. In a menacing world, McCain says, he will keep America safe.

So, at 72 and with a history of cancer, how could McCain choose a vice presidential nominee who has, let's face it, zero experience in foreign affairs? Being the nominal commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard doesn't count, unless you think Vladimir Putin is about to order an invasion across the Bering Strait.

From Slate:

Each new fact we learn about Sarah Palin—her reversal on the bridge to nowhere, her disagreements with McCain on issues from windfall profits to global warming, emerging facts about troopergate—contribute to the feeling that this whole Palin thing is being made up as we go along. It may be fun to read about, and it sure is fun to cover, but it also supports the judgment of the Palin pick that I first heard from a Republican veteran shortly after the announcement: "Reckless."
Obama was supposed to be the risky candidate. That's certainly how Republicans have painted him. Judging from how he's run his campaign, though, he's very conservative. Nevertheless, polls have shown that voters think McCain is the less risky pick by as much as 20 percentage points. Now that McCain has made a high-profile decision essentially defined by its riskiness—observers have called it a "Hail Mary pass" so often, I'm starting to think it's a play for the Catholic vote—the question is whether McCain has squandered his advantage with voters on the question of risk.

The bridge to nowhere:

Boston Herald: 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.

"I think that’s when the campaign for national office began," said Ketchikan mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Weinstein noted, the state is continuing to build a road on Gravina Island to an empty beach where the bridge would have gone - because federal money for the access road, unlike the bridge money, would have otherwise been returned to the federal government.

It’s a more complicated picture than the one drawn by McCain, a persistent critic of special-interest spending and congressional earmarks. He described Palin as "someone who’s stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need."

See this story on all the earmarks -- those nasty things McCain is always railing about -- that Palin raked in for Alaska. 

Sarah Palin McCain's Bridge to Nowhere

Now that's funny. Here's a blogger in Alaska, who was surprised by the choice.
Take a look at the photo of the town of Wasilla, where she was mayor.

Here's my theory on the Palin Pick: John McCain, Mr. Maverick, got so disgusted by being pushed, prodded and shaped by all the republicans, including lowly talk show hosts, that in a fit of rage that he's known for, he just threw up his hands, picked Palin and said - "Happy now."

Apparently, the bridge to nowhere that she fought against, is actually one she championed:

Perhaps the brain was still a little fuzzy from the shock of McCain’s new VP pick, Alaska’s own governor Sarah Palin. Perhaps it was still stuck in the endless loop of wondering - why? why? why? Whatever the reason, it took more than 24 hours for Palin’s first big untruth to register with me.

Today, while I watched her hop out of the “Straight Talk Express” bus, and give the second reading of her acceptance speech, one of my fellow viewers said, “You know, I don’t remember her opposing the Bridge.” And it hit me. I don’t remember that either. A quick double-check with the third member of our watch party confirmed our confusion. We all live here. We all watch the news, read the paper, and pay attention to the local political circus, but none of us connected Sarah with her claims of rebuffing the controversial earmark.

The backstory on the "bridge to nowhere" is juicy. Check out this factcheck.
Reaction from Alaskans.
Palin could come through.
Palin's foreign policy experience.
How the vice presidency could change under McCain.
Palin: The republican babe.
Wootengate -- Palin and small town politics, where everybody knows everybody.