Pedestrian Observer GB: Road to Nowhere is Sarah Palin’s cul-de-sac

What’s up with having a cul-de-sac? Great if you are a suburban hockey mom so used to having it in their exclusive enclaves. So leave Sarah Palin alone, after all cul-de-sacs benefits suburban busy hockey moms some privacy without buying into pricey neighborhoods especially in these uncertain real estate market bubble starting to burst and go bust.

You should give Sarah Palin of the “thanks and no thanks bridge to nowhere” fame credit for making use of the earmarked funds in building a cul-de-sac to the beach as reported by LA Times:

GRAVINA ISLAND, ALASKA -- The 3.2-mile-long partially paved "road to nowhere" meanders from a small international airport on Gravina Island, home to 50 people, ending in a cul-de-sac close to a beach.

Crews are working to finish it. But no one knows when anyone will need to drive it.

That's because the $26-million road was designed to connect to the $398-million Gravina Island Bridge, more infamously known as the "bridge to nowhere." Alaskan officials thought federal money would pay for the bridge, but Gov. Sarah Palin killed the project after it was ridiculed and Congress rescinded the money. Plans for the road moved forward anyway.

Some residents of Ketchikan -- a city of 8,000 on a neighboring island where the bridge was to end -- see the road as a symbol of wasteful spending that Palin could have curtailed. Some of them even accuse her of deception.

Spin doctors are scurrying to debunk the LA Times article with some lame rationalization that the cul-de-sac errr road was needed once the ferry service was improved. Uh huh, yeah right like people will fall for that.

Had she listened to Ronald D. Utt , Ph.D. the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation in this commentary Palin can become a bridge builder, maybe she would have really been a formidable opponent for the Democratic ticket, to quote:

Let's analyze what's wrong with this situation. First, Congress earmarked (and subsequently de-earmarked) federal money for the unnecessary and expensive Gravina Bridge project.

Second, even though the state Legislature canceled the bridge component of the project, the state plans to proceed with this relatively small portion, which has highly questionable need but which retains federal funding.

Third, the state will knowingly ignore the fact that, at $8 million per mile, this 3-mile gravel road will be an extremely expensive use of taxpayer money with little to no measurable benefit (except to the road contractor, of course).

There is an alternative, however: Gov. Palin could return the money for the gravel "access" road to Washington, perhaps even with a request that the money go to rebuild hurricane-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi. While Alaska, or any state for that matter, naturally is reluctant to return money to the federal government, doing so is the responsible and ethical thing to do and likely would benefit Alaska in the long run. Currently, officials from other states resent Alaska because the state in recent years received the highest per capita level of federal spending. This fact, coupled with the state's "bridges to nowhere" reputation for wasteful spending, makes elected federal representatives from other states more than happy to vote to reduce Alaska's federal appropriations.

Because returning money to the federal government is so unusual, Gov. Palin and the state of Alaska inevitably would reap enormous amounts of good publicity nationally. If she returned the federal money, Palin would be signaling to the rest of the country that, under her administration, Alaska will carefully handle taxpayer dollars responsibly. There's no better way for the governor to build bridges, metaphorically speaking, with the rest of the country.

Kevin Drum posted The Decline and Fall of Sarah Palin citing Mojo Blog's Polling Tidbits showing she is now the least popular of the big four, is it the lies errrr ok the stroking of the truth into good sound bytes or was it to be expected?

This is getting to be really funny and speaking of funny, Elaine’s Place in her 2 minute laugh entry posted a hilarious Conan O’Brien video on Sarah Palin. Daily Kos says the fierce gun-toting moose woman from the Klondike cancels appearances because it might ... rain?

Sarah Palin came out with a bang like a celebrity and even celebrities can’t help speak out their minds. I don’t know why they have to do it in such manner but as always you know something’s brewing and most of the times when it comes to celebrities it almost always end up with some scandal of sorts………

Related articles:

Subscribe in a reader

Click on the images to receive your free email updates
POGB will not sell, exchange, use or allow any 3rd party access to your email for
any other purposes without exception, email exclusively for article updates only.