Yes, thanks and thanks again, to that road to nowhere

Sarah Palin, many times and oft falsely has claimed that she said to Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," in their offer of that bridge to nowhere. Doubtless we all know now that Governor Palin was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it before she was for it. Be that as it may be, Palin has taken money from the Federal government to build a road to nowhere.

The Los Angeles Times yesterday reported:

The 3.2-mile-long partially paved "road to nowhere" meanders from a small international airport on Gravina Island, home to 50 people, ending in a cul-de-sac close to a beach.

Crews are working to finish it. But no one knows when anyone will need to drive it.

That's because the $26-million road was designed to connect to the $398-million Gravina Island Bridge, more infamously known as the "bridge to nowhere." Alaskan officials thought federal money would pay for the bridge, but Gov. Sarah Palin killed the project after it was ridiculed and Congress rescinded the money. Plans for the road moved forward anyway.

If this isn't earmark profligacy of the first magnitude, I don't know what is.

It is said that Gertrude Stein once observed of her hometown, "There's no there there." It is absolutely certain that we may say the same thing about where the new road leads, that is, "There's no there there." And it perhaps has become apparent to many of us that Stein's comment is equally applicable to Palin. There's no there there. I think putting Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House is the most important project on the national agenda, but second to it is the project of keeping Sarah Palin as far away from the White House as Wassila is from Washington. Fortunately, the second project is the obverse side of the coin: doing one thing gets us the other.