Video: The pork stylings of Biden
posted at 7:15 am on September 29, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Joe Biden has had a good time talking about the Bridge to Nowhere, and so far the mainstream media has been happy to repeat his attacks on Sarah Palin for her initial support for the Ketchikan bridge before opposing it as governor. However, CNN finally reports on the support this bridge received from both Biden and Barack Obama, and goes one better. They report on Biden’s pork record, including a project that CNN calls The Bridge to Two Nowheres:
DON LEMON: Senator Joe Biden has said a lot about Sarah Palin and the so-called Bridge to Nowhere on the campaign trail, but there is a bridge in his own backyard that she could be talking about. CNN’s Special Investigative Unit Correspondent Drew Griffin reports.
DREW GRIFFIN: Last week it became part of his stump speech. You believe Senator McCain and Governor Palin are good for America’s road to recovery, Joe Biden says you better check their road map.
JOE BIDEN: I’ve got also a bridge I’ve got to sell you here. Guess what? It’s in Alaska and it goes nowhere.
GRIFFIN: Perhaps Biden believes the Bridge to Nowhere is the symbolic bridge to cross into the White House.
BIDEN: John McCain’s answers for the economy and that we’re in such desperate shape is the ultimate Bridge to Nowhere. It’s nowhere. It takes you nowhere.
GRIFFIN: But hold on Senator Biden. Keeping him honest, we decided to check on 116 reasons in Delaware that one Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska may not be such a good Democratic talking point, because 116 is the number of earmarks Senator Biden asked for this year alone. The total bill to taxpayers more than $342 million. He told our American Morning they are all justified.
BIDEN: Everyone has seen them and we have no Lawrence Welk Museums, we have no Bridges to Nowhere in Delaware. It’s all straight up.
GRIFFIN: Straight up? We went to Delaware to see for ourselves. True, there is no Lawrence Welk Museum, but Biden does want a million dollars for a children’s museum, another million dollars for opera house renovations, hundreds of thousands for this tiny waterfront park, and believe it or not, there’s also a bridge, maybe not to nowhere, but after the tourists have gone this time of year, the Indian River Inlet Bridge can seem like a bridge between two nowheres.
CAROL EVERHART: We need a new bridge and we are so fortunate that this is finally at a place where it’s going to happen.
GRIFFIN: Carol Everhart with the local chamber of commerce says the Indian River Inlet Bridge is a vital link in the tourist trade, connecting the vacation towns of Dewey Beach and Bethany Beach. Without this bridge, she says, 30,000 summer vacationers a day would have to drive an extra 35 minutes. The bridge has some erosion problems and if it ever collapsed, it would cause economic disaster here, Everhart says.
WOMAN: The bridge as it is is currently safe.
EVERHART: So why is Senator Biden asking for $13 million for this bridge now? That’s what Bill Allison of the watchdog group the Sunlight Foundation wants to know.
BILL ALLISON: Actually what Senator Biden is doing is saying that, well, my states bridge gets the priority dollars, even though it’s not a priority project.
GRIFFIN: Now the real twist in this story. Senator Biden must really like bridges, because not only does he want you to help pay to replace this bridge here in Delaware, despite what he’s been saying on the campaign trail, he actually voted for Alaska’s Bridge to Nowhere. Twice. That’s right. He and Senator Barack Obama were among the 93 Senators who voted for the massive 2005 Transportation Bill funding the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere and thousands of other projects across the country. And when another Senator tried to divert the Bridge to Nowhere money to fix a bridge to New Orleans damaged by Katrina, Senators Biden and Obama and 80 other Senators present voted against the amendment.
ALLISON: Yes, they had a chance to vote specifically against the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, to redirect the money, and they chose not to.
GRIFFIN: John McCain, who always opposed earmarks, was not in the Senate that day and did not cast a vote. Sarah Palin wasn’t even the Governor yet. So why is Biden raising the Bridge to Nowhere on the campaign trail? Of course we wanted to ask him directly, but his campaign never got back to us. Drew Griffin, CNN, Dewey Beach, Delaware.
LEMON: And just to be clear, Drew based this on the number of appropriations Senator Biden requested for the last fiscal year. Just this week Congress approved the 2009 budget and reportedly there are at least 2000 earmarks in that bill and reporters are still trying to determine what they’re all for.
How much do you want to bet that John McCain will use “The Bridge to Two Nowheres” in the next debate? Sarah Palin may get to it first on Thursday. Certainly, the McCain/Palin campaign has worked with Palin to put these projects at the forefront in her debate with Biden.
Biden may have more to explain on Thursday. Last week, USA Today reported that Biden has $51.5 million in earmarks in the continuing resolution bill meant to keep government operating in lieu of an actual budget, which Democrats don’t want to produce before seeing who wins the presidential election. Obama suspended his earmark requests, but Biden has no such discipline. Of course, he’s also running for Senate and needs to bring home the pork in order to justify his existence.
The Bridge to Two Nowheres, brought to you by the Ticket of Two Non-Reformers.
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Incompetency is just a liable as Malevolence…
Doctors are held accountable for incompetence…so should those in Government.
workingclass artist on May 17, 2013 at 2:29 PM
Here is the crux of the matter. The Obysmal administration was so intent on portraying Libya as a great success in the flourishing of democracy and that Al Qaeda was “on the run” that they hadn’t prepared for the jihadists’ attack. Sending in help or a rescue might have cost even more lives, and they didn’t want the body count to even go higher. The O-team was content to keep the “collateral damage” relatively small for their own cynically political purposes.
onlineanalyst on May 17, 2013 at 2:31 PM
I consider them both but if they are publicly saying this as their excuse, then you can bet they are worried that the actual info is about to come out. For all those not paying attention, that would be Fast and Furious 2; The benghazi edition.
Boehner should step up and say, “ok, we are all in agreement that you are idiots, now we are going to find out just what the hell you were doing over there!”
can_con on May 17, 2013 at 2:32 PM
Do a google map search of Sigonella and tell me what type of aircraft (and the number) that you see there.
blink on May 17, 2013 at 2:41 PM
Regarding the Rush caller near the end of his program just now wondering why all the focus on the coverup of the Benghazi matter and not the cause of it: it’s because if you look at the factors that led to the attack you’ll find McCain, Rubio and Graham were promoters and the GOP establishment would prefer people only focus on the aftermath and Democrat coverup rather than the bi-partisan cause.
FloatingRock on May 17, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Their best defense: We’re horribly incompetent and shouldn’t be allowed to run a hamburger stand. But we still don’t think our incompetence caused anyone to die.”
And even there, we can point to 4 people who died, and many more that would have died if 2 of those 4 hadn’t responded without waiting for orders and staged a rescue action.
So it’s not really, “incompetence that didn’t cost any lives.” It’s “incompetence that cost 4 lives.
And this is their best defense. Which almost certainly means they’re lying, and there really was deliberate malice and/or neglect behind it.
There Goes the Neighborhood on May 17, 2013 at 3:01 PM
Here’s a crazy thought. Earlier in the day, the Cairo embassy had been besieged. Why not put fast-response forces on standby THEN?
Basically the U.S. response on 9/11/12 was the same as a rabbit when it notices a nearby wolf. Hold very still and hope the threat passes by.
hawksruleva on May 17, 2013 at 3:01 PM
That’s definitely a non-zero number of aircraft. For that matter, I hear there are aircraft all over the world. I’m thinking if the US REALLY wants to get somewhere, we can probably pay enough to charter a flight/commandeer a helicopter, etc.
Too bad we don’t have any naval capabilities available in the Middle East. Or an air base in the Middle East. Or a friendly well-prepared regional ally who could send in some forces on our behalf.
hawksruleva on May 17, 2013 at 3:07 PM
Is that going to be Hillary’s campaign slogan?
Hillary 2016: “I’m Not Corrupt, Just Incompetent!”
AZCoyote on May 17, 2013 at 4:05 PM
“I can’t answer the god*!mn 3am phone call…cause I’m too drunk to find the f*#kin’ phone…@#$%&*$#@!!…” – Hillary Clinton
workingclass artist on May 17, 2013 at 4:18 PM
The GOP should use that quote in every political ad against Dems from here on out.
Of course they won’t…they don’t want to “alienate moderates” or something limp-wristed akin to that.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 17, 2013 at 4:19 PM
Who gave the ‘stand down’ order…?
Seven Percent Solution on May 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM
Weapons To Syria.
Libyan weapons to Syria, Mali and Gaza Strip – US Security Council Report.
We were in Benghazi for the weapons.
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 4:39 PM
“US” – Should be UN Security Council
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 4:39 PM
Syrians squabble over Libyan weapons – Sept. 15, 2012.
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 4:45 PM
So it seems that the real clusterfark of idiocy is that no accounting was made for how to deal with Libyan weaponry and we have essentially armed a whole region of
terroristsmilitias and rebels.oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 4:51 PM
Stevens was probably in Benghazi to review weapons “applications” from different bidders. As long as you didn’t have anything like “Tea Party” in your militias name, you could buy sell or trade weapons.
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 4:55 PM
If I remember the logic puzzle correctly, the right question to ask would be something like “If I asked you yesterday whether you were an idiot or a liar, which would you have answered?”. Idiot still says “idiot”, liar would have said “idiot” yesterday, but must now lie about that so must say “liar”.
WTF, correct answer is “progressive”.
bofh on May 17, 2013 at 4:59 PM
WTF, correct answer is “progressive”.
bofh on May 17, 2013 at 4:59 PM
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 5:02 PM
Oops.
oldroy on May 17, 2013 at 5:02 PM
When incompetence merges with complete corruption you have a perfect storm.
MaiDee on May 17, 2013 at 6:09 PM
Those maps are old, but ok, One sec…
Ok I did that. There are a number of jets on the tarmac. I knew there would be.
That was my point. Any adult would know this. There is no excuse for letting those men die.
dogsoldier on May 17, 2013 at 6:27 PM
We can either charter one or if necessary we have people that can borrow one.
dogsoldier on May 17, 2013 at 6:29 PM
I think “lying idiots” pretty well covers it!
Another Drew on May 17, 2013 at 6:35 PM
I keep going back to Hillary’s 3:00 A.M. Phone Call ad. It seems that everybody in the administration failed that test. They’ve sunken below even my lowest expectations, and I don’t see anyone in the GOP bullpen likely to rise above ideological squabbles and lead us out of this.
flataffect on May 17, 2013 at 7:06 PM
The challenge was issued above by an obvious Obama apologist, to look at a Google map of Sigonella and report whether any aircraft were seen there.
The question would be, “why not”. Actually, if there are no aircraft there now, there soon will be because the Italian government has just reported that 200 U.S. Marines plus two aircraft are being based at the joint U.S. Italian base at Sigonella, Sicily. (Just across a short stretch of water from Benghazi.) “Quick, the horse is galloping down the lane, close the barn door.”
Oldflyer on May 17, 2013 at 7:48 PM
This is why I do not believe it was stupidity. I believe whoever left the ambassador isolated, wanted to make sure he was not covered
I am a minority, but I believe there was to be an event to lead to a glorious hostage exchange – but it was foiled by the brave men who refused to stand down. Whoever started the evil chess game was left hanging and they had to run with the video fast, precisely because no one, no one, would be able to explain withholding cover from the victims. If I am right, I will never be vindicated, because the scandal will be too great so they have to fall back on stupidity
IMHO stupidity in such a case implies a total contempt for the lives of the victims. This is why we need an IRS scandal.
In any case, there is no way Obama can justify flying off the next day to a fund raiser. That in itself demands an IRS scandal. Since the Whistleblowers were coming, the guilty ones had to start a chicken dance, fast.
AP scandal was the one and only way to get the MSM willing to beat up on Obama’s IRS
entagor on May 17, 2013 at 10:11 PM
My vote goes to: you are lying idiots.
ghostwalker1 on May 17, 2013 at 11:18 PM
This is a theory that makes all the pieces fit. It’s true they’re incompetent, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t also up to no good.
Cara C on May 18, 2013 at 1:05 AM
Wonderful article by Sharyl A. The administration appears to be conceding they have lost the debate and are plea bargaining for the lesser charge of idiocy over malice. This won’t do. In the entire piece, no explanation was given for the arrival of the video onto the scene.
Don’t fall for that hangdog expression, Repubs. Those watery eyes are shifting about.
MaxMBJ on May 18, 2013 at 3:30 AM
There were people in Tripoli, who could have gotten to Benghazi. All of that came out in direct testimony from a variety of sources.
dogsoldier on May 18, 2013 at 10:26 AM
You are correct, but it’s malice when you deliberately leave someone in a precarious position ( I mean 9/11 really? ) and ignore their pleas for help<<<<< And then HE.WENT.TO.BED.
That is the most malicious thing ever. Oh wait! Then HE.LIED.ABOUT.IT
Then he got everyone around him to lie about it. And go on five shows to lie about it and he made a lying ass commercial about it and had some poor slob who made a youtube video locked up and lied about it.
Geez he's STILL lying about it.
dogsoldier on May 18, 2013 at 10:31 AM
I’m surprised that the Regime is claiming the “idiot defense”. I thought Team Obama were the smartest guys in the room. The MSM has told us Obama is the best thing since sliced white bread. What happened to his 2008 campaign slogan “Judgement To Lead”? But I guess in their minds, claiming to be idiots is better that self identifying as marxist enemies of America.
SpiderMike on May 18, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Hillary 2016: “I’m Not Corrupt, I’m Just an Idiot!”
AZCoyote on May 18, 2013 at 2:48 PM
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