And What About That Bridge to Nowhere??? – Everything there is to know right here.

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UPDATED With documentation and details.

Obama says she was for it before she was against it. Well I have been collecting every scrap on info on this story for a couple of days and I am almost ready to have a post – complete with the glossy colored 8×10’s with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back.

In short and the evidence will be posted tomarow or so with my big post on this, but here is the nutshell version:  

– Did the bridge go nowhere – it was connecting two islands for a pretty good reason actually.

– The bridge was for a town of 7,400 people who need to grow and can’t because of the mountain of rock the city is up against – so they want to expand on a nearby island – very near by and the city’s airport is already over there, but they have to ferry everything cause there is no bridge. The town has a massive cruise ship, touring and fishing industry and they are running out of room.

– Imagine your city being split in half by a water way and there is no bridge so you cant drive over, even in the harsh winter so walk to the ferry and wait.

– Was Palin for it when she campaigned for governor and later turned against the project? Yes, but what no one is telling you is WHY. Former Governor Murkowski and the press said that project would cost about $223 million. When Palin took office she found out that the revised estimate for the project pushed it to over $400 million. Even with federal help this would have been a massive undertaking for the state. So Palin indicated that she was going to try and come up with an alternative to the bridge (like expanded ferry service) …. than Ted Steven’s got in trouble and the earmark crackdown started… but you all know about all that.

 – Some in the town are a little upset over no bridge and having their town called “no where”.

 – So there is your “big scandal”. Pretty plain and simple when it is just explained it to you in 5 seconds isn’t it? The fact that the media is trying to make a scandal out of this says a lot about them.

OK HERE IS THE EVIDENCE AND THE DETAILS AS PROMISED – READ AND LEARN

Ketchikan is a fishing, Hunting, arts and major tourist community in the south-southeast of Alaska. If you take an Alaskan Cruise, Ketchikan will be one of your stops. To say that Ketchikan is beautiful doesn’t approach what a truly breathtaking place Ketchikan is.

Like other communities in this part of Alaska; ferry, floatplane and boat are the only way to get around. They have roads and cars, but the roads between the larger cities CAN’T connect to each other because of the geography.

Ketchikan has a population of 7,368 according to the census 2007 estimate making it the fifth largest city in Alaska, just behind Wasilla which is the fourth.

So the first question anyone should ask is, “Why would a small community like Ketchikan need a $223 MILLION bridge?” So I started doing a little homework.

Click to enlarge.

This is the Google Earth image of Ketchikan, Alaska. As you can see the community sits on three islands that are not connected. The small center island has very little on it. The island on the left has the Ketchikan International Airport and the island on the right has the city itself.

As you can see its boats or nothing for just getting back and forth. Ketchikan would like to grow but it cant as it is up against, literally a steep mountain of rock. See the following photo’s to get a better idea of what I mean. Click on each image to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

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Click to enlarge.

There is room to grow however on the island that the airport is on, but to make that truly practical Ketchikan needs a bridge or, at the very least, an (subsidized?) enhanced ferry service to make it practical and affordable for residents and tourists.

The picture on the bottom gives a view of the airport and as you can see the island is flat enough for quite a bit of growth before they ran into that mountain on the farside.

When Palin campaigned for Governor she pledged to move forward with Governor Murkowski’s plan to build the bridge. That was before the revised estimates for the bridge exceeded $400 MILLION, which is almost double what Palin had expected and almost double what was reported in the press.

That kind of expense change is enough to make anyone think twice.

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Click to enlarge.

As a result of this expense change, Palin and the state government began to indicate that an alternative may be needed to the bridge project. Just as $1.30 a gallon gas to $4.00 a gallon gas changes ones position on offshore drilling (ie McCain), a near doubling in price to over $400 million would make any responsible government official think twice.

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While there have been many articles covering this issue most were lacking in facts and long on accusations and an attitude. This one article from the Anchorage Daily News contains almost all of the information one needs and is one of the best Elite Media articles I have seen covering this issue. The problem with this article is the way it is presented. The most important facts of the story are over 20 paragraph’s into the piece.

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In journalism this type of bias is called burying the lead. They know that most readers wont get passed 4-5 paragraphs into the story. There is no way that taking the “WHY” part of the story and putting it on the 27th (where the $400 million figure appears in the story) or so paragraph deep fits any offcially recognized journalistic writing model. I have been watching the Anchorage Daily News for some months now and they are walking a difficult balancing act. They know that most of the state’s population is Republican/Libertarian, but as I have said many times, journalists and editors write for each other a little more than they do for actual consumers. So they can’t be seen as too much against Palin or they will lose local readers and revenue, but they dont want to write really straight journalism that can be seen as “too complimentary” by other journalists and editors across the country on Palin. The result is that most stories include back handed compliments and the attitude that gives the unspoken narrative that she offends their Eastern Ivy left of center sensativities so their peers won’t look down on them.

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I have linked several articles from the Anchorage Daily News on this blog. If you doubt it please take a look at them and anyone but the most partisan people will see this attitude or “unspoken narrative” I am referring to.

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Palin, as a candidate for Governor of Alaska, told the people of Ketchikan that she favored the bridge, and while she had no idea that estimates were revised to double the cost she had expected till she took office, she should keep her word to help with alternatives or help them get the bridge later. Clearly Palin and the State of Alaska owe them something. Governor Palin you gave Ketchikan your word in 2006 when you let them know that the bridge could not be done this year to help them cope in other ways. I expect you to keep your word.

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The Real Political Ramifications

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The Obama Campaign and most of the elite media are spinning this out of control. The Alaska Democratic Party credited Palin in 2007 with making the right decision for officially stopping what they called the $398 million project saying that the state had other priorities for that money.

” [Senator] Ted [Stevens] Earmarked Funds for Bridge that Goes Nowhere” and the “State of Alaska killed bridge”. They go further to credit Governor Palin for killing the Bridge to Nowhere. The site states: “She said it was clear Congress had little interest in spending any more money for it and that the state had higher priorities.”

The Alaska Democratic Party posted this praise of Palin on their “Retire Ted” (an obvious shot at Stevens’ age that you would never see in the lower 48) web site. Here is the link:

http://www.retireted.com/real-estate/gravina-bridge/ted-earmarked-funds-for-bridge-that-goes-nowhere/

Last week the Democratic Party pulled the site offline so that people would not find this praise of Palin and the timing is what is crucial. You see, the Obama Campaign and the media’s spin is that Palin wasn’t against it till she started getting nationwide attention recently. BUT, the Anchoridge Daily News, statements from Governor Palin, and the Alaska Democratic Party all confirmed this as totally false as Palin, after she took office learned that the project would cost double from what she was told, in 2006 let Ketchikan know that the bridge project might not happen and Palin officially stopped the project in 2007. This web site also pointed out how the page was pulled down.

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By the way here is google.com’s cache of the web site the Democrats pulled down:

http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:szpJxaSZwiMJ:www.retireted.com/real-estate/gravina-bridge/ted-earmarked-funds-for-bridge-that-goes-nowhere/+http://www.retireted.com/real-estate/gravina-bridge/ted-earmarked-funds-for-bridge-that-goes-nowhere/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

So what does this mean? The Obama Campaign is lying about this and knows it.

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Chuck Norton