Account of a Bridge’s Death Exaggerated

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and LARRY ROHTER
NYT

ST. PAUL — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska owes her selection as Senator John McCain’s running mate in part to an irresistible slogan: the Bridge to Nowhere.

Mr. McCain and other critics of the Congressional pet projects known as earmarks adopted the label to deride a $220 million allocation for a bridge to the tiny Alaskan island of Gravina (population, a few dozen). And Ms. Palin became famous as the governor who, in 2007, finally killed the project.

“I told Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ on that Bridge to Nowhere,” she said in a speech on Friday after being introduced by Mr. McCain as his vice presidential pick.

But Ms. Palin’s history with the infamous bridge — and earmarks, which many critics call pork — is more complicated.

As the new mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, in 2000, Ms. Palin initiated a tradition of making annual trips to Washington to ask for more earmarks from the state’s Congressional delegation, mainly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, both Republicans.

“It was about being face-to-face with those who were actually writing the budget,” she told The Anchorage Daily News in 2006, boasting that she brought home more money for priorities like upgrades to the local sewer system.

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