Governor Pawlenty Exonerated

So the veto of the gas tax didn’t result in the 35W bridge collapse?

My esteemed overlord hates to say “I told you so.”

Allow me.

Mitch told you so.

Number 1:  When the engineers finally release their report about what actually caused the 35W Bridge Collapse, a lot of regional lefties – Elwyn Tinklenberg, Rep. Alice Hausman, Nick Coleman and others among them – are going to owe the Governor, Lt. Gov/Transportation Commissioner Molnau, the Taxpayers’ League and the “hold the line on taxes” crowd – a lot of apologies for a lot of defamation.

Number 2: None of them will actually give those apologies.

Nick Coleman’s article of August 2nd is no longer linkable. But here are excerpts of Nick’s rabid blather at the time from Roosh Five:

The death bridge was “structurally deficient,” we now learn, and had a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.

There isn’t any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble than a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.

Nick Coleman: Drama Queen. Hack Journalist. Dead Wrong.

Only this isn’t a metaphor.

But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it isn’t just concrete and steel that has failed us.

In a word, it was avoidable.

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It’s been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase – the first in 20 years – last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I’m not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren’t enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.

I-35W bridge was doomed from the start

Investigators will say the blame lies with designers who erred in calculating the size of key gusset plates, sources say.

Original designers of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis likely neglected to calculate the size of key gusset plates that eventually failed, a human mistake that culminated 40 years later when 13 people died after the span collapsed, federal safety investigators have found.

They also have determined that corrosion of certain gusset plates, extreme heat and shifting piers did not contribute to the bridge’s collapse on Aug. 1, 2007, according to sources with direct knowledge of the probe.

Elwyn Tinklenberg, Rep. Alice Hausman, Nick Coleman will undoubtedly not be reachable for comment. Mr. Coleman’s resume can probably be found on Monster.com.

10 thoughts on “Governor Pawlenty Exonerated

  1. Pingback: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Minneapolis bridge collapse: design failure

  2. Or;

    It’s political cover for Pawlenty. Beyond that, regardless of the design, the plates were tired, cracked and in desparate need of updating – all of which points to the fact that we tried to exist on a subsistance level of funding for roads rather than do our duty that our parent’s did for us, namely, provide for an infrastructure at least as good as what we were given, and capable of sustaining growth and commerce.

    This report I’M SURE will be wholely impartial, won’t possibly have been influenced by political pressure to cover Pawlenty and the underfunditis that currently grips the Republican party in a mutually assured death lock – but even if we buy that – the bridge didn’t fall down for 30 years, so I guess the design was good enough for 30 years – what failed was recognizing the need to replace it sooner.

  3. Or;

    It’s political cover for for the Democrats. Beyond that, regardless of the design, the plates were tired, cracked and in desparate need of updating – all of which points to the fact that we tried to exist on a subsistance level of funding for roads rather than do our duty that our parent’s did for us, namely, provide for an infrastructure at least as good as what we were given, and capable of sustaining growth and commerce.

    This report I’M SURE will be wholely impartial, won’t possibly have been influenced by political pressure to cover the Democrats and the underfunditis that currently grips the Democratic party in a mutually assured death lock – but even if we buy that – the bridge didn’t fall down for 30 years, so I guess the design was good enough for 30 years – what failed was recognizing the need to replace it sooner.

    Hey this is fun. Since the Democrats have controlled the legislature around here as much as the Republicans have over the span of this bridge, all you had to do was make a switch of parties in your argument and it makes just as much (or as little) sense.

  4. As if the Democrats’ predisposition to raising taxes would somehow have led to the discovery sooner of tired and too thin gusset plates.

    You never fail to entertain my friend.

  5. At least we got a nice Choo Choo train for Minneapolis and the Mall of America. That’s some money well spent. I wonder how many will die from the “underfunditis” of the billion dollar University Ave. line.

  6. Good grief, Peev.

    Why would the NTSB need to give Tim Pawlenty political cover? What possible advantage would there be for a federal agency to produce a false report to protect the governor of Minnesota?

    If we’re not allowed to link William Ayers to Barack Obama, there’s no way in hell you can link the engineers who used the wrong gusset plates 41 years ago to Pawlenty, who was, what – 6 years old at the time?

    I’d blame Karl Rolvaag, but that’s not fair either. He wasn’t a structural engineer.

    Tell you what — if you want to start personally blaming individual politicians for everything that goes wrong, that’s fine. We could have a lot of fun with that in 2009.

  7. Hindsight being twenty twenty, I am sure that if qualified people knew exactly what to look for, (and been in place at the right time) they could have closed the bridge prior to the collapse.

    However, we have a tendancy to over focus on the thing that happened last. We will catch problem bridges in the next few years while we neglect another area. Stop signs, RR crossings, or something else. A tragedy will happen and our focus will change to whatever that is.

  8. Pingback: The Twin Cities Daily Liberal » How a smart Governor could have prevented the I-35W collapse

  9. […] JRoosh, that icon of conservative logic, is thrilled: Governor Pawlenty doesn’t have to take responsibility for failing to protect Minnesotans from the I-35W bridge collapse, because the bridge ws designed poorly. Yes, the bridge was slowly, slowly collapsing over the course of 40 years, so how could we have done anything to protect the public? […]

    Seconding jpmn, you can’t inspect for an inherent design flaw. It was a tragedy no doubt, but blaming it on the Governor and his staff is a political tactic not based in the realities at hand.

    Let us not forget that ironically, it was current improvements to the bridge, funded by taxes that are already high enough, that may have been the last straw in it’s collapse.

    True to form as a Liberal Jeff, you expect the government to be there to protect us from any and all pitfalls and risks inherent in living in a civlized society and are all too quick to place blame – but only if a conservative holds that office.

    I hope my post leads to some traffic on your blog. 😉

  10. Public anger will follow our sorrow
    Nick Coleman. Star Tribune. Minneapolis, Minn.: Aug 2, 2007. pg. ONLINEO

    Full Text (809 words)
    (Copyright 2007 Star Tribune)

    The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

    The fear of falling is a primal one, along with the fear of being trapped or of drowning.

    Minneapolis suffered a perfect storm of nightmares Wednesday evening, as anyone who couldn’t sleep last night can tell you. Including the parents who clench their jaws and tighten their hands on the wheel every time they drive a carload of strapped-in kids across a steep chasm or a rushing river. Don’t panic, you tell yourself. The people in charge of this know what they are doing. They make sure that the bridges stay standing. And if there were a problem, they would tell us. Wouldn’t they?

    What if they didn’t?

    The death bridge was “structurally deficient,” we now learn, and had a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.

    Would you drive your kids or let your spouse drive over a bridge that had a sign saying, “CAUTION: Fifty-Percent Bridge Ahead”?

    No, you wouldn’t. But there wasn’t any warning on the Half Chance Bridge. There was nothing that told you that you might be sitting in your over-heated car, bumper to bumper, on a hot summer day, thinking of dinner with your wife or of going to see the Twins game or taking your kids for a walk to Dairy Queen later when, in a rumble and a roar, the world you knew would pancake into the river.

    There isn’t any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble then a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.

    Only this isn’t a metaphor.

    The focus at the moment is on the lives lost and injured and the heroic efforts of rescuers and first-responders – good Samaritans and uniformed public servants. Minnesotans can be proud of themselves, and of their emergency workers who answered the call. But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it isn’t just concrete and steel that has failed us.

    So far, we are told that it wasn’t terrorists or tornados that brought the bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.

    They are troubling.

    If it wasn’t an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a lousy accident – a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support – then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.

    In a word, it was avoidable.

    That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.
    For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It’s been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase – the first in 20 years – last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

    I’m not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

    Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

    How ironic is it that tonight’s scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.

    At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren’t enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.

    And now, one has fallen, to our great sorrow, and people died losing a gamble they didn’t even know they had taken. They believed someone was guarding the bridge.

    We need a new slogan and we needed it yesterday:

    “No More Collapses.”

    Nick Coleman – ncoleman@startribune.com

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