David Online

CNN reports today that, “Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.”

“Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show.” 

“And both voted for the final transportation bill that included the $223 million earmark for the Alaska project.”

“An amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, would have stripped the money appropriated to connect the Alaskan coastal city of Ketchikan to its airport on sparsely populated Gravina Island and diverted the money to Louisiana.”

“But Biden and Obama and 80 of their colleagues rejected the measure, an amendment to a massive 2005 transportation bill that funded thousands of projects across the country.”

As a gubernatorial candidate, Sara Palin supported the bridge although later as Governor, she said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” in part because the bridge became a symbol of congressional waste.

It may have been congressional waste to you and me and Governor Sara Palin, but for Barack Obama and Joe Biden it was business as usual.

Thank God – or thank Darwin in case you’re a liberal – that we have Joe Biden in this year’s election campaign. God and Darwin know we need the humor what with the acrimony, accusations, and allegations being thrown back and forth between Obama and McCain.

I don’t care if you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or call yourself an Independent, you gotta’ love Joe Biden.

Speaking to Katie Couric on CBS Evening News this week about the current turmoil on Wall Street, Joe Biden said: 

“Part of what a leader does is instill confidence, to demonstrate that he or she knows what they’re talking about…when the stock market crashed [in 1929], Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn’t just talk about, you know, the princes of greed, he said, “Look, here’s what happened…”

There are just a couple of “minor” problems with that statement. Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t president in 1929. Herbert Hoover was. Roosevelt didn’t take office until January 1933. And of course there was no television in 1929. I believe the first president to make a televised presidential speech was Harry Truman in 1947 – 18 years later.

Don’t worry though, Joe. I’m sure if Roosevelt had been president in 1929 and television had been commercially available then, he would have said those very words.

 It’s a good thing something that silly was said by gaffe-prone Joe Biden. Can you imagine the uproar from the media if that had been Sara Palin?

Interviewed this morning on CBS’s The Early Show for her thoughts on the proposed $700 billion government bailout, Senator Hillary Clinton agreed the situation is critical and that something must be done quickly. Clinton went on to suggest,

“Once we get through this immediate crisis, the country should look at some Great Depression-Era type of government entity to deal with it.” 

I sure hope Clinton is not suggesting the next president re-constitute Roosevelt’s socialist government programs of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). It was programs like this that turned what should have been a two-year recession into a twelve-year depression.

I read once that, “despite all President Roosevelt’s efforts and the courage of the American people, the Depression hung on until 1941…”

The Great Depression lasted 12 years – not “despite all Roosevelt’s efforts”, but because of Roosevelt’s misguided efforts.