Sarah Palin said in her acceptance speech at the RNC that "If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves." She said pretty much the same to Chris Matthews, Charles Gibson and at every campaign stop.
But it turns out she isn't doing it by herself after all. The federal government is footing a chunk of the bill for the replacement program that would link Ketchikan to its airport.
Gov. Palin’s administration acknowledges that it is still pursuing a project that would link Ketchikan to its airport -- with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original project.
"What the media isn't reporting is that the project isn't dead," Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaska’s Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the state’s DOT is currently considering (PDF) a number of alternative solutions (five other possible bridges or three different ferry routes) to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island.
The DOT has not yet developed cost estimates for those proposals, Wetherell said, but $73 million of the approximately $223 million Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) earmarked for the bridge in 2005 has been set aside for the Gravina Access Project.
The full details are at ProPublica.
So - how many different ways has she been untruthful about the Nowhere Project now? I confess I've lost count.