Bridging differences

The Minnesota Monitor [1] blog is keeping up with the best reporting on the bridge (or, we should rather say, conservative failure) tragedy.

Find there eyewitness accounts:

Ran into woman who thought school bus was trapped on east side in fold of highway. Couldn't confirm it or get to the other bank to help.

Find also, most crucially, the outraged reaction of even conservative bloggers like Minneapolitan John Hinderaker of Power Line:

This is the kind of disaster that just doesn't happen in the United States--a bridge spontaneously collapsing, apparently, into a river. It is hard to convey to those who don't live here the astonishment of this sort of catastrophe happening on our most traveled highway.

But here's the thing. Conservatives like Hinderaker are demanding we not "politicize" the disaster. That's dead wrong, because this is an entirely political disaster, and demands an entirely political solution.

Some more facts suggesting right-wing taxphobia is to blame:

A MN DOT document from March 2006 indicated that the bridge was scheduled for repairs in 2006, but it was removed from the schedule because it would be more efficient to do the work in 2007. One of the questions that needs to be answered is if budget constraints were the cause of delaying the repairs.

As long as Grover "Drown Government In A Bathtub" Norquist retains an iota of influence within the American political class, this will happen again, again, and again, and again.

This is your government on conservatism. Maybe it will break people like Hinderaker out of their spell.