Nothing official, of course, but that’s what the Clinton campaign is doing.

Allahpundit:

She’s got a few weapons left — brass knuckles at tomorrow’s debate, 527s taking off and strafing the Messiah in Texas and Ohio — but that won’t roll back the advance. It’s our dumb luck that we finally get the Clintons in an election where we can beat them … and they flame out in the primary against a superior candidate. Even in defeat, they end up making our lives harder.

Anyone want to offer any Hail-Mary optimism this morning or should we pause at last to exult in her failure, electoral consequences be damned?

Or as Slublog puts it:

I do hope the Tics drag it out a bit lot longer, of course.Every time a Tic spends a dollar campaigning against a Tic, an angel gets his wings.

I’ve been monitoring a Saint Paul Politics discussion group.

It’d seem that turnout at DFL caucuses was incredibly heavy – and the Obama vote was staggering, with blowouts even worse than the one he notched statewide.

Anecdotally, most of these new voters seemed to be fairly clueless; many of them just dropped in, cast their ballots, and left (legal in the DFL, not in the GOP, although many tried).

Further evidence of my theory that Obama is the next Jesse Ventura; he’ll draw a slew of ignorant, clueless “voters” with his vaporous, vacuous “message” who would otherwise not have the faintest idea where the polls are. It’s interesting that the raw numbers of voters dropped in 2002. with Ventura out of the race.

Which, to some, is a good thing.  But I have to ask – are uninformed, clueless “voters” good for the country?
They’re good for the DFL and the Tics, obviously; a lot of Republicans, myself included, started as Democrats until they got a clue.

Well, we’ll see.

One of the frustrating things about Obama (and the thing that may well earn him the Tic nomination, if not the presidency) is the fact that he is so vaporous on the issues.  What does Obie believe, really, behind all of that rhetoric about “change”?  Well, you have to do some digging.

And Clayton Cramer has – and finds that behind Obie’s palaver, he’s lying about his approach to the Second Amendment:

It isn’t just that he supports bans on semiautomatics, and more possession and purchase restrictions. He claims that he wants more laws to keep guns out of the inner cities. Why? Does he think black people lack the sense that white people have?

The roots of gun control in America have always been racist; America’s first gun ban, in the late 1860’s in south Texas, was aimed at disarming blacks, many of whom were Union Army veterans who gave the early Klansmen a lot of nasty bloody noses.  The resurgence of gun control in the late sixties was a knee-jerk response to inner-city crime (and the RFK assassination) – and to the left and the media, “inner city” is always a PC synonym for “people of color”.

Obama may be able to triangulate on faith – but he’ll polish the turd of his anti-gun past into a perception of being gun-friendly over my dead body.  And I think I can name about four million NRA members who’ll go along with me.

Those of you who remember back to the early days of the Clinton administration remember the death of Vince Foster (the Clinton staffer who died of suicide after shooting himself in the back of the head eight times with a high-powered sniper rifle that he managed to get rid of before he died), which sort of kicked off the nineties’ great cottage industry – Clinton Conspiracy Theories.  These theories – on both sides, really, from Joe Farah’s “Bill Clinton started an AIDS epidemic in Canadian prisons to enrich his Arkansas friends” to Hillary’s own “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” that’s smeared her and her husband all the way to the brink of the White House yet again – are pretty universally comical in retrospect – and few were more ghoulish than the Foster theories.

MLP from “Casual Sundays with Mr. Curry” – a blog you should be reading more of, no matter what your excuse – puts the whole matter to rest:

I am convinced that Hill is completely innocent of knowing or having anything to do with Foster’s unfortunate demise.  Here’s my proof;

No, I’m not going to copy and paste it for you; go over there and read it.

One of the things that’s been blocking single-payer health-care in this country – aside from the fact that it’s hideously expensive and, cherry-picked stats aside, tends to leave nations with lowest-common-denominator healthcare – is the hideous cost.

Madame Putin Hillary has an approach to that: hold a gun to peoples’ heads and make them pay:

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC’s “This Week,” she said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.”

This – along with her play during the era of Hillarycare! to turn the Tic party apparatus into a sort of home-grown Stasi to build dossiers on Hillarycare!’s opponents – should make all you Democrats who’ve been yammering about “choice” for the past thirty years (to say nothing of all you “Ashkkkroft Libertarians”) rise up in arms against your presumptive nominee.

Shouldn’t it?

Jay Reding gives one of the most complete shreddings of Barack Obama out there.

While I’ve complimented Obama’s communication style, it is just that – style. Reding closes that circle:

Ultimately, what makes Obama so troubling is that he’s putting out the political equivalent of junk food. His silky-smooth and tasteful rhetoric is ultimately full of calories, but has no nutritional value. A President must make hard decisions. They must not only talk about “change” but about facing down the real issues that effect the lives of voters. The American public deserves something more than smooth talk—they deserve real and substantive answers. Will Barack Obama continue to govern along the same far-left liberal lines as he has voted in the Senate? How will Barack Obama deal with the threat of terrorism? How will he deal with the impending insolvency of Medicare and Social Security? Talking about “change” is not an answer. Saying “yes we can” is not an answer. The American people deserve real substance, and Senator Obama is feeding us empty calories.

America has an obesity problem – intellectually as well as physically. This nation loves empty calories. Jesse Ventura was an Almond Joy, if you catch my drift – and we all know how that turned out. Obama is like a Three Musketeers bar.

Berkeley not only tries to shut down a Marine recruiting station, it gives Code Pink preferential treatment to carry out their harassment!

[the Berkeley City Council] voted 8-1 to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”

OK, so we’re used to Berkeley (and San Francisco, and Minneapolis for that matter) “sending” stupid “messages”. 

But this bit here… 

In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.

In other words, in parking-strapped Berkeley, the City Council is lending city property to a protest group!

Can every protest group expect that sort of consideration?

Doy…:

“I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don’t belong here, they shouldn’t have come here, and they should leave,” Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said after votes were cast….The recommendation to give Code Pink a parking space for protesting and a free sound permit was brought by council members Linda Maio and Max Anderson.

Some peoples’ freedom of speech is more important than yours, obviously.  At least, it is in Berkeley.

Code Pink on Wednesday started circulating petitions to put a measure on the November ballot in Berkeley that would make it more difficult to open military recruiting offices near homes, parks, schools, churches libraries or health clinics. The group needs 5,000 signatures to make the ballot.

In other words, zoning them like pr0n shops.

But here’s the part I like; it’s not entirely one-sided!

Because not only does the story note (as I did, years ago) that the Pinkers are stupid and ignorant – they’re lousy neighbors!:

Even though the council items passed, not everyone is happy with the work of Code Pink. Some employees and owners of businesses near the Marines office have had enough of the group and its protests.

“My husband’s business is right upstairs, and this (protesting) is bordering on harassment,” Dori Schmidt told the council. “I hope this stops.”

An employee of a nearby business who asked not to be identified said Wednesday the elderly Code Pink protesters are aggressive, take up parking spaces, block the sidewalk with their yoga moves, smoke in the doorways, and are noisy.

“Most of the people around here think they’re a joke,” the woman said.

A joke?  Really?  Seems a little…

…well, accurate.  It seems their Pinkers aren’t any smarter than ours are:

Fran Rachel, 90, a Code Pink protester who spoke at the council meeting, said the group’s request for a parking space and noise permit was especially important because the Marines are recruiting soldiers who may die in an unjust war.

“This is very serious,” Rachel said. “This isn’t a game; it’s mass murder. There’s a sickness of silence of people not speaking out against the war. We have to do this.”

“Our opponents are mentally ill”.

Oh, I’m looking forward to seeing those dimwitted old crones at the RNC.

Really, really, I am.

UPDATE WITH BOOYAH:  The American Legion says “Berkeley Delenda Est“.  Legion leader Marty Conatser does to the Berkeley Flower Children and the Pinkos what the Marines did to Peleliu (via Michelle):

“Osama bin Laden couldn’t have said it better,” American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser said of the Berkeley City Council Resolution, which tells the Marines that they are not welcome there. “Disgraceful, disloyal, ungrateful. These words are too kind in describing the actions of the public officials in Berkeley, who voted for this disgrace. Nonetheless, our Marines continue to bravely serve and in so doing, allow Americans to spout such foolishness. The American Legion not only strongly condemns this action by the City Council but also believes that a sincere apology is in order to all Marines, past and present.”…“I have been a recruiter in the National Guard and I know that it’s tough duty, with long hours,” Conatser said. “What these recruiters do is essential to our national security. Without recruiters we have no military. And I don’t think we can count on the flower children from Berkeley to protect this nation when it comes under attack. They have to remember that Marines are not the enemy; the terrorists are.”

“Remember”?  They have to learn it in the first place.

Remember; if some tinhorn city government can vote to make the Marines (or any other body of government) “unwanted and unwelcome intruders”, they can do it to anyone. 

Polinaut reports that Obamapalooza is sold out:

A campaign spokesman says 15 thousand online tickets have been given out and the campaign is expected to give out a few thousand paper tickets. Update — All tix are gone. No tickets are available. I’m told there’s a waiting list of 2,000 people.

Obama is apparently going to throw a sweaty towel into the audience.

An emailer notes that Jim Oberstar is going to provide cover for the Tics and their premature indictment of the Taxpayers League, the Governor and the Incredible Stable Gas Tax for the collapse of the 35W River Bridge.

He  points us to this article in the Strib (emphases added):

Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar, chairman of the
House Transportation Committee, fired off a critical
letter to the head of the National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) on Wednesday, saying it was
“highly inappropriate” for him to dismiss corrosion
and poor maintenance as possible causes for the
Interstate 35W bridge collapse.”

Seems to me that Oberstar is pressuring the NTSB to
make sure that their final conclusion includes some
mention of corrosion or maintenance. 

If the facts don’t support you, argue the law (of physics); if the law of physics doesn’t uspport you, argue the facts.  If the facts and the law are against you, argue like hell.

Call it “trying to create reasonable doubt” – although the doubts Oberstar is trying to create are in no way reasonable.  Bridges don’t fall because of ethical lapses or political choices or semiotic miscues; they fall due to ineluctible failures in material or design.   

Back to Oberstar:

“The board has not determined whether the design of
the plates was the primary cause of the accident
compared to other possible causes such as corrosion
and poor maintenance,”

His earlier statements just after the NTSB press
conference also imply he’s expecting different results
in the final version.  Oberstar is the head of the
transportation committee which has over site of the
NTSB.

In other words, Oberstar would seem to be playing to the nutroots; people who’ll believe any crap you shove in front of them. 

Read and decide for yourself:  here’s the transcript of the NTSB press conference.  See what references to maintenance or corrosion or gas taxes you can find coming from the engineers who contributed to the findings, so far.

The emailer notes:

At no time does the NTSB claim to know the
cause of the bridge collapse.  The purpose of the
press conference is to issue a “safety recommendation”
to the Federal Highway Administration with regards to
re-performing bridge design calculations.

NTSB safety advisory report (not a preliminary report)

and here if you’re a bridge engineer.

The emailer also directs us to this bit on Rep. Oberstar’s website, and this quote:

“Congressman Jim Oberstar says that the preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) may help prev ent another tragedy like the I-35W bridge collapse.  “The NTSB is right to take aggressive action to release any information about the bridge collapse.

Unless it doesn’t provide cover to Alice “The Phantom” Hausman, E-Tink, Nick Coleman, and the DFL and their other water carriers.

I’m going to send an email to Oberstar’s office asking for comment. 

I’ll keep you posted.

Glenn Reynolds noticed something at the State of the Union; people – the President, in this case – are seriously talking pork:

His actions aren’t as bold as I’d like, but still — back in 2005 when PorkBusters started, nobody in Washington cared and members of Congress were bragging about pork. Now the State of the Union leads of with an attack on earmarks, to thundering applause.

Thundering applause – from the pork ranchers themselves?  Isn’t that sorta like Major Renault’s “I’m shocked – shocked“ line in Casablanca?

Yeah, a lot of it’s a sham. But hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and this kind of hypocrisy indicates that the anti-earmark momentum is growing.

One of these years…

Although the “dumb” President has managed to stymie the “smart” Tics on the war, taxes, and issue after other issue, at least Nancy Pelosi has one one big-time victory.  The House cafeteria is now just fabulous:

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

But there can be a downside to delicious. Not everyone is happy with the enhanced offerings. Many congressional employees have complained that as the food quality has increased, so have the prices.

I smell an entitlement program brewing!

Call it “StaffAid”, or perhaps “AdminFeed”?

A fruit and cheese side dish with two small wedges of brie and cheddar, six grapes, two saltines and one strawberry cost $4.95, for example.

Who says populism is dead?

A legislature, to paraphrase Napoleon, travels on its stomach. I guess the tic majority will be headed to Provence during their next break.

“‘Liberated’  Women voters seize the day” is the Times’ headline re Hillary!’s “upset” comeback in New Hampshire:

Yesterday she claimed to have “liberated” women politicians, after a campaign in which she revealed a previously unseen passion and personal empathy.

And how did she do that?

Mrs Clinton played down claims that her tearful appearance in a Portsmouth coffee shop on Monday had been the catalyst for the turnaround in a contest that Mr Obama had expected to win easily. Instead, aides said that a more personal and open approach had allowed voters to see the “real Hillary Clinton”.

See “Ron Brown’s Funeral“.

Hillary in Cthe last round of Democrat debates (emphasis added):

This is the toughest job in the world. I was laughing because you know in that debate, obviously Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama were kind of in the buddy system on the stage. And I was thinking whoever’s up against the Republican nominee in the election debates come the fall is not gonna have a buddy to fall back on. You know, you’re all by yourself. When you’re president, you’re there all by yourself.

Yep.  All by yourself.  Nobody to whine about.

I’m fairly sure that Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Kim Jong-Il and Hamas operate in something of a “buddy system”, too, Hills.  What’s Katie Couric going to do for you there?

Stephen Kaus writes that rarest of things – something at the Huffpo that’s worth reading.

Here – Hillary’s shot at bucking the 22nd Amendment (I’ve added emphasis):

The more Hillary tries to use Bill’s presidency as experience, the more we feel like it is the same old, same old and the closer it approaches the 22nd Amendment [which codified the two-term limit] situation, as Ann Althouse points out at the end of this clip. The idea that we have had enough of the Clintons and the Bushes is deeply rooted in our feelings about government. If Hillary had left Bill and were striking out on her own, we would feel less this way, but that is not what she is doing. She is campaigning for a third term while invoking executive privilege as to what she did during the first two.

Worth a read.

On the one hand, I love the way the Democrats are starting to squeal about the Clintons’ dirty tricks and misleading spin – once they’re aimed at Democrats.

On the other hand, as squealing goes, the video here is mighty funny.

K-Eck from Eckernet notes that Hillary’s planted answers might be actually better than her supporters’ sincere support:

Andrew Young, civil rights activists, apparently was making the argument for the Clintons being “more black” than Obama. And as justification for that he had this to say…

“He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack,” Young said of former President Clinton, drawing laughter from a live television audience.

Erhm – by that rationale, I’m more hispanic than Clinton…

I have no doubt that is true….and that’s just since he married Hillary. Although I’m not sure the sexual prowness is really a critical skill needed to be president.

Although it apparently doesn’t hurt with the “feminist” vote, if the former President’s record is any indication.

On a more serious note:

Probably more troubling is this…

Young went on to say that Obama needs a protective network that he currently lacks – a quality that could hurt him if he were to be elected. He said Hillary Clinton already has that kind of network, including her husband to back her up.

Heh, if everything you plan on doing is legal and ethical, how critical is that??

Without that extended Clinton network of hacks, lawyers and media sycophants, how will Obama survive?

I suppose White House travel office employees can breathe easier if Obie wins…

The all-important Penn endorsement is in the bag, and Kucinich is the big winner:

Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn endorsed Dennis Kucinich for president in San Francisco Friday.

Penn made what had been billed as a “major political statement” at San Francisco State University.

The event was organized by the S.F. State College Democrats and was paid for by Kucinich for President 2008.

NBC’s Domenico Montanaro said a source close to the Hollywood star confirmed Penn would endorse Kucinich.

Call in the dogs and pee on the fire. It’s all over.

Or is it “pee on the dogs and call in the fire?” I can never remember.

Another Democrat joins John Murtha in abandoning the…er, John Murtha anti-war slag.  It’s North Dakota’s Earl Pomeroy, and he agrees:

Pomeroy says the incidence of roadside bombings and other violence is down because Iraqis are taking a more vigorous part in attacking factions that are causing violence in the nation.

The congressman says his visit proved to him that General David Patraeus, who is in charge of American forces in Iraq, has done an extraordinary job…

(Rep. Earl Pomeroy, -D- ND) “I think he i incorporating four years of lessons learned from mistakes made in a dramatically improved US performance. We have had outstanding performance by our soldiers all along, but the plan has not always been one that has been very well equipped to meet the unfolding circumstance in Iraq. I think now we’re on the right track in Iraq thanks to the leadership of General Patraeus.”

Which is something conservatives – myself included – can agaree on wholeheartedly.

Further proof that North Dakota natives are smarter.

…when I think all leftybloggers get their copy from the same centralized service.

Seriously.  Good example – this past few weeks, some leftybloggers have accuses some of us of “stalking the stalker” – Googling fact-checking certain leftybloggers who show an unseemly interest in us. 

And it’s not just local!  “Stalking” apparently now means “Googling lefties”:

Well, at least I’m assuming that’s the definition in the netroots handbook because Todd Beeton of MyDD today accused conservative blogger Michelle Malkin of stalking for daring to use Google to fact-check CNN.

Hm.  I’ve had so many liberal women I’ve dated (or thought about going out with) google me before meeting, I could make a Lifetime movie.

So I read Lori Sturdevant’s column yesterday, about  AFSCME endorsing a Democrat yadda yadda.

Sturdevant – the DFL’s unofficial PR flak masquerading as a Strib columnist, and whose writing style verges on Socialist Realism when writing about DFLers – was in full flak mode:

But brave faces — many of them battle-scarred…”AFSCME doesn’t always pick a winner,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, a former gubernatorial candidate, with a touch of defiance…But the Tuesday-morning crowd knows something else — several, from first-hand experience. They know what a big-bucks, take-no-prisoners statewide campaign looks and feels like. They can envision what Coleman and his allies will be throwing at Franken next fall…A DFL recapture of the late Paul Wellstone’s seat…

[Note to the DFL Flak:  It’s “the people of Minnesota’s” seat.  It’s not “Wellstone’s seat” any more than it was “Rudy Boschwitz’ seat”, or “the seat of…” any of the 20-odd other people who’ve sat in it.  Wellstone was just elected to it.  Please quit making this mistake.  Thanks – Ed.]

Brave, deviant, scarred faces; plucky underdogs in the face of the Coleman onslaught.  Reminds you of a Russian documentary on Stalingrad, no? 

So what’s missing?

An impassioned defense of Mark Ritchie.

It’s possible I’m reading too much into this.  But normally, when a DFLer is under fire (and Ritchie most certainly is), the Strib’s columnists circle the wagons and cover their guy’s six.  And it could certainly still happen; this scandal is a young one, and since Sturdevant delivers one whole column a week, it could very well be that her deadline fell before Ritchie’s scandal broke.

Let me be clear on this; not saying something is no admission of guilt or complicity, especially on someone else’s part, and I’d be a cheap hack yellowblogger if I said or implied any such thing.  I’m remarking on the absence, not drawing inferences.

I never thought I’d say this – but I’m looking forward to the next Lori Sturdevant column.

Rosner at Ha’aretz notes that  the Democratic prez candidates sound a lot like…neocons.

But the even more amazing thing about the Pakistan chapter of the debate was the extent to which the Democratic candidates sounded almost like – well – neocons.Consider their praise for democracy and their insistence that the Bush administration should be pushing Pakistan’s President to allow elections in Pakistan to move forward. Consider the talk about how democracy in countries like Pakistan contributes to America’s national security (Clinton). Consider their practical dismissal of the danger attached to a destabilized Pakistan (Dodd was the exception, saying that “When you take the oath of office (for the presidency) January 20th, you promise to do two things: protect and defend the United States and protect yourselves from enemies foreign and domestic.”)

Interesting that the Administration has had to adopt – at least operationally – a more realpolitik-y approach on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, promoting stability and strong traditional institutions (like the sheikhs and tribes) over surface indications of democracy, for at least the time being, while the left is moving into the space the Administration has for the moment vacated.

Consider all their statements and you?ll reach one of two conclusions:
Either everything is politics, and when Bush does A (avoids pushing the Pakistani President) the Democrats must say B no matter what; or, as much as the Democrats want to deny it, the Bush years did influence the way they think about the world.

I’ll take (C):  All of the above, but with a healthy dollop of Bush Derangement slathered on top.

Gateway Pundit notes that Pelosi’s war policy has hit…a bit of a quagmire:

Speaker Pelosi has failed to pick up any Republican backers to cut and run with the democrats from Iraq since she took over the House in January. And, 5 more democrats bailed on the party since July.

When they even lose Hegel…

Elliot Spitzer gundecks his plan to give drivers’ licenses to illegals:

The governor is due to meet Wednesday morning with New York’s congressional delegation, many of whom openly oppose the program. Debate over the issue also has spilled into New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The governor’s office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that Spitzer will say at the meeting that he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.

While plan advocates rationalized it by claiming it would make the roads safer, that was bit of a red herring – think how much safer we’d be with millions of criminals off the road in the first place? – the real problem was the disingenuity of the plan’s supporters, who either didn’t know about the loopholes the plan offered to illegals, or didn’t care.

Political incompetence or tone-deafness on their part doesn’t constitute and emergency on ours.

Last month, Spitzer sought to salvage the license effort by striking a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to create three distinct types of state driver’s licenses: one “enhanced” that will be as secure as a passport; a second-tier license good for boarding airplanes; and a third marked not valid for federal purposes that would be available to illegal immigrants and others.

How about one that is stamped “CRIMINAL”?

Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic and Republican rivals for her noncommittal answers on the subject. She has said she sympathizes with governors like Spitzer who are forced to confront the issue of immigration because the federal government has not enacted immigration reform. She has not taken a position on the actual plan offered by Spitzer.

Because then all the nasty men would be mean to her?

They do have a point; the government – Congress as well as the President – has been shamefully craven on immigration.

The Democrats don’t want to require voters to prove they are who they say they are…

…but they want to make sure illegals can prove they are what they’re not?

Sen. Hillary Clinton was asked during a debate this week if she supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. At first she seemed to endorse the idea, then claimed, “I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it.”

The next day she took a firmer stand (sort of) by offering general support for Gov. Spitzer’s approach, but adding that she hadn’t studied his specific plan. She should, and so should the rest of us. It stops just short of being an engraved invitation for people to commit voter fraud.

Why do Democrats hate America?

Ever since the immediate aftermath of the 35W bridge collapse, a parade of lefty pundits lined up to blame the disaster on lack of state aid to local govenrments, closed libraries, and the war in Iraq for all I remember.

The response – let’s wait until actual engineers investigate this thing.

Well, they’re still investigating.  But according to federal transportation officials, Bthere’s a working theory, and that theory is that Nick Coleman suffered a stroke has, has, so far, nothing to do with money:

The top federal transportation official said that investigators have a “working theory” of why the 35W bridge collapsed in August: a poorly designed metal component called a gusset plate and excessive weight on the bridge that day.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters’ comments Thursday mirrored statements she made in August, a week after the collapse, and like her previous comments immediately led to controversy. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the collapse, has said a formal finding will not be available for at least a year.

Everyone knows this.  But knowing that the investigators have narrowed things down to a short list of theories does help…

…in dealing with this kind of thing:

Sen. Steve Murphy, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said Peters told a gathering Thursday in Washington, D.C., that he attended that “a finding of fault was not going to be lack of inspection or lack of maintenance” by state officials.

“I think it taints the findings,” he said.

No, Senator Murphy.  It taints the spin you and your party want to bring to the upcoming election.

It is all politics to the likes of Murphy.

But a spokesman for Peters said Murphy’s account of her comments was inaccurate.

“What she said is, look, I’m not going to prejudge what the NTSB is going to find, but the working theory that they are operating on, and this has been in the news for about two months now, is that there was a combination of a gusset plate and too much weight placed on a certain part of the bridge,” spokesman Brian Turmail said.

“Certainly, the NTSB would want to look into whether lack of maintenance was a factor in the collapse of the bridge,” he said. But Turmail added that “the working theory at the NTSB is that it is not a lack of inspections, but a design flaw and weight.”

Doesn’t seem all that controversial, does it?

Unless you’re someone for whom the bridge collapse was nothing but political red meat in the first place:

Later Thursday, Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, confirmed Murphy’s account. “Murphy was sitting behind me and I turned to him and said, ‘What is this?'” Erhardt said. “To hear that it wasn’t maintenance or inspection, I thought, ‘What the hell?’ I remembered early reports about the gussets and I thought, what is that but lack of maintenance?”

I have to sit still for a minute.

I need to breathe slowly.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Rep. Erhardt:  If the gusset plates were (as the “working theory” postulates) poorly designed – meaning “not designed to be capable of relieving the stress on the joints that they needed to under the circumstances” – then their maintenance would (under my understanding of the theory) be irrelevant.

If you design a gusset plate (and its attendant bolts and welds, and its interaction with the rest of the structure) to transfer fifty tons of weight from girder A to arch B, and there’s really eighty tons being transferred, it wouldn’t matter if the plate were brand new out of the box; there’d be a problem.

A design problem.

Not a maintenance problem.

The Strib piece – by Patricia Lopez – notes the real importance of this theory. Oh, and it has nothing to do with the bridge falling over:

A design flaw would give administration critics less of an opening to hold current officials at the Minnesota Department of Transportation or Gov. Tim Pawlenty responsible.

And – oh, yeah, just like all of us people who care about science and stuff have been saying all along – it’s not over yet:

“It’s true, yeah, we are looking at the design issues and the gusset plates and the weight of the construction materials and equipment on the bridge,” NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said. “We’re also looking at the maintenance and repair history. We’re looking at the de-icing fluids — any role they may have played. We basically haven’t ruled anything out yet.”

But you can smell the fear, can’t you?

It’s interesting; for all the yapping the left does about the (caricaturish, cartoon-y parts of the) right’s flailing about with non-issues like evolution and creationism, it’s amazing the contempt the (caricaturish, cartoon-y parts of the) left has for science.