Bridge Of Sighs

Definition of "pork barrel": slang - A government project or appropriation that yields jobs or other benefits to a specific locale and patronage opportunities to its political representative. Three years ago when a project like this, a bridge to connect a tiny island in Alaska with another town that was already serviced by a ferry, some Alaskans reacted with embarrassment. David Raskin of Homer, Alaska, wrote to his local paper, “Alaskans owe an apology to the people of New Orleans, to Alaska Native people and to the Nation for their selfish shortsightedness in sending these scoundrels to Washington and voting to keep them there.” Sarah Palin indicated during her 2006 campaign for governor that she supported the bridge, but was wishy-washy about it. She told local officials that money appropriated for the bridge "should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done."
Sarah Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly four hundred million dollar bridge from Ketchikan to an island with fifty residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor. The McCain campaign continues to repeat the lie that Sarah Palin stopped the "Bridge to Nowhere." She didn't say "no thank you," as she suggested in her speech at the Republican National Convention. She vowed to defend Southeast Alaska "when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." Something that John McCain was busy doing at the time, as a fierce critic of the bridge.
And when all was said and done, the bridge didn't get built, and Sarah Palin got to get in line to be on the list of "The Original Mavericks." It doesn't take much of a Maverick to turn down something that nobody wants anyway. The grapes at the end of that bridge were probably sour anyway.