Stimulus Money At Work - Michelle Malkin Has Hissy Fit

By nature, we are a visual culture.

We love to see something at work. When we do, we are more apt to accept it as fact. Michelle Malkin has a problem with facts.

Seems that "The Purse-Lipped One" doesn't like any sort of sign that shows that construction/roadway projects are being funded by the Economic Stimulus. You know Michelle, it's called "transparency".

But she didn't stop there:

Dave Thul e-mailed me that he snapped another one of these tax-subsidized re-election billboards in his neck of the woods in Minnesota. He blogged the pic under the perfect title: “Trying to make the crap sandwich taste better.”

She goes on to cite Thul's pseudo-clever twist of logic:

This isn’t just bad advertising, it’s also partly false. There are two projects taking place on this 4 mile stretch of I-35. The first project is renovations on 10 bridges that is being funded by the normal transportation bill. The second project is resurfacing and a median guardrail that is using stimuless funds.

The cost of the bridge repair is about 3 million dollars, while the cost of the two projects together will be just over 8 million dollars. So VP Biden, the overseer of the allocation of the stimuless money, is spending 5 million dollars on a road construction project but taking credit for the whole 8 million dollar project.

And there's the hook Malkin was looking for. No doubt that she was tossing and turning in her sleep, praying to Limbaugh and her agent that she could find some flimsy limb she could grasp onto.

Thul's thesis is built around two roadsigns and a link to Recovery.gov. He states that since there is no line-item in the balance sheet that identifies that particular road, then his must be a lie. Too bad Mr. Thul can't seem to comprehend that line-item #1 is titled "State Fiscal Stabalization". You see, if this project was already on Minnesota's books and they went over-budget because of it, then it stands to reason that the road project funds work on this project that so bothers Mr. Thul.

Two roadsigns. TWO!!! Damn you Barack Obama and your desire to fix things!

And let's say that the Minnesota Transportation Board had some of that money reallocated to projects that were being put off due to lack of funds? Perhaps Thul would like a replay of the I-35W bridge collapse? Nah, he's probably not that much of a douche-taco.

Not that we would expect Malkin or Thul to accept the very real fact that Stimulus money is being used to repair and renew infrastructure in America, but doesn't this speak volumes for what she and all like her believe?

The saying "seeing is believing" does apply in this instance. Unless you are Malkin and your job is about keeping people ignorant and blind.

Are The Republicans Afraid It Might Collapse, Again?

Michelle Malkin wrote about this on her blog. Trying, in the ham-fisted style that she is so proud of, to blame this tragedy on "illegal-immigrants" is just further proof that she is - for lack of a more appropriate term - bat-shit crazy.

But now, the GOP is probaby going to just forget that this ever happened. Even though they are having their convention just 10 miles away from it next month.

It’s a year today since the Minneapolis bridge collapse that killed 13 people, but don’t expect Gov. Tim Pawlenty to showcase the reconstruction.

Indeed, with the Republican National Convention in St. Paul just a month away and Pawlenty reported to be high on John McCain’s running mate list, Republicans want to drive attention away from the infrastructure disaster that spotlighted the nation’s crumbling bridges and from the criticism the governor faced for what some critics said was a slow response.

The governor’s staff reports there are no plans to hold any events near the site of the bridge collapse, about 10 miles from the convention hall. And GOP convention planners have organized hundreds of buses to ease the congestion expected when some 45,000 conventioneers, guests and media commute to the hall.

More here.