Ed Morrissey rightfully goes after Sen. John McCain for his comments that pork-barrel spending caused the I-35W bridge collapse. It’s one thing to say that money spent on pork can’t be used for better purposes, like infrastructure repair. That’s a legitimate argument. However, money had nothing to do with the I-35W bridge collapse, either a lack of it or too much of it. The problem was that when the bridge was built in the 1960s it had a critical design flaw that wasn’t identified until after the collapse.
It’s bad enough when Democrats try to politicize the collapse—it does not behoove Republicans to do the same.
UPDATE: McCain is backing away from his comment, as well he should. Earmark reform is a serious issue—it doesn’t need to be tied to an unrelated bridge collapse to be good policy.
“It’s one thing to say that money spent on pork can’t be used for better purposes, like infrastructure repair.”
Your past comments, particularly deriding Huckabee’s January call for a New Deal-style renaissance of highway investment, would lead one to believe that you think infrastructure repair in and of itself is “money spent on pork”.