The Discerning Texan

All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke

Thursday, August 02, 2007

A Bridge Too Far

I wish I were not so cynical--but it is things like that which do not make it easy. When Fox broke into the Minneapolis Bridge tragedy last night, I instantly thought of Katrina and how all of the MSM's horses and all of Congress' "men" rode into town and proceeded to blame President for the Category 5 hurricane that had come through the previous day. So--the way my cynical mind works I thought "I wonder how long it will take someone to blame Bush for this one...". But I was kind of kidding... So when I saw this from John Hinderaker this evening, I was a bit shocked--but not completely:

While my wife and I watched news footage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse last night, many thoughts went through my mind. One thought that never occurred to me, however, was "How could I make political hay out of this tragedy?"
Not so with Nick Coleman, the loyal Democratic party hack who writes a column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Less than twelve hours after the bridge went down, Coleman had in print a column blaming the collapse on Governor Tim Pawlenty and all others who oppose tax increases. (No one but Pawlenty was mentioned by name.) How was the governor responsible for this tragedy? A few months ago, he vetoed a five-cent a gallon tax increase. Of course, Coleman has to admit that this veto had nothing to do with the bridge collapse:

And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through....

Indeed. There was never any money in any transportation bill to replace the 35W Mississippi River Bridge, because no one ever thought it was necessary. And this year's budget is obviously irrelevant to a bridge that would take years to design and build, even if that had been considered appropriate.

Read the whole thing. Disgusting.

Labels: Democrat, Media Bias, Minneapolis bridge tragedy, Unbridled Partisanship