Of all of the many right-wing e-newsletters to which I subscribe, none has seemed more emeninently skippable than the one published by the third-raters at Minneapolis's Center for the American Experiement ("Defending the American Dream"). Nonetheless, given current obsessions, I forced myself to slog through the one dated August 20, in which CAE president (and serial "Perlstein" mispeller) Mitch Pearlstein [1] writes:

Several critics over the last two weeks have made the case for at least a dotted-line connection between the terrible collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge and the determination of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and his allies not to raise state taxes over the last five years [Ed.: That's me!]. But for any connection to hold, at least one of the following conditions would have to be true, when not a single one is.

It would have to be demonstrated, for instance, that decisions by the Minnesota Department of Transportation about what to do about the bridge -- whether to repair it, how to repair it, when to repair it -- were made on the basis of what such steps might cost. But I know of no evidence that money played any role in determining what state officials or anyone else did or didn't do in maintaining the bridge.

Likewise, to draw any suspect connection between the collapse and the consistent preference of large numbers of Minnesotans to hold the line on taxes, one would have to assume that inspectors and other officials charged with protecting and serving allowed anything other than their professionalism to determine how they gauged the sturdiness and fragility of the state's infrastructure....

Read your local paper, Mitch—the one in which the very op-ed above appeared on August 19. The day before that, your Star-Tribune [2] ran an article entitled "Phone Call Put Brakes on Bridge Repair," teased thus: "Plans to reinforce the bridge were well underway when the project came to a screeching halt in January amid concerns about safety and cost." If you're the sort who tends to nod off reading complicated newspaper articles, Mitch, well, their reporting directly contradicted your lies in riveting you-are-there fashion. Pay close attention:

The men and women whose job was to ensure the safety of Bridge 9340 were meeting once again. Just after noon on Dec. 6, they filed into a conference room in Roseville to divvy up the final prep work for a dangerous steel reinforcement project high above the Mississippi River.

A senior engineer was going to pull property records in order to contact landowners beneath the bridge. Detours were coming for West River Road. The Coast Guard was about to get heaps of paperwork on what tasks would be done from the river channel. Truck drivers would soon learn of pending weight restrictions.

It appeared that the most studied bridge in Minnesota, the focus of worrisome inspection reports for a decade, was finally going to have its most glaring weaknesses fixed.

It didn't happen—partly out of technical concerns well-explained in the article. But also:

at least three internal documents suggest that money was a consideration.

On Jan. 18, one day after MnDOT's Bridge Office opted to inspect rather than reinforce the bridge, Peterson apologized to an engineer in the department's Metro Design section that work put into the reinforcing project was for naught.

"We regret the additional work this has caused you and others in the district," Peterson wrote in an e-mail, "but I'm sure you agree that based on this new information it [is] appropriate that we postpone the project until we can determine if another option may [be] as safe and a more cost effective approach."

Earlier, when MnDOT and its consultants were zeroing in on reinforcing the bridge, an internal MnDOT "investment strategy" meeting was held on July 24, 2006, in which officials debated various approaches.

According to meeting minutes, officials said that immediately installing steel reinforcements would greatly reduce the risk of a crack forming "between now and 2022." That way, the agency could pick the ideal time and circumstances for carrying out the work.

The "risk" of that approach was described this way: "Must pay approximately 2 million dollars to get the job done."

A logistics and financial issue also was discussed. MnDOT officials said that if the bridge was simply inspected, the benefit would be: "Don't have to pay for steel, stockpile steel, or install steel."

What this all means is that we're not talking about a video of some right-wing Montgomery Burns here, rubbing his hands together and saying, "Eggggcellent! We can let infrastructure rot." (The only sort of evidence, apparently, that would satisfy a Mitchell Pearlstein.) What is revealed in the documents is instead a culture of second-guessing based on even costs that are entirely marginal ($2 million) to Minnesota's full highway budget. Says our Mitch: "It would have to be demonstrated, for instance, that decisions by the Minnesota Department of Transportation about what to do about the bridge -- whether to repair it, how to repair it, when to repair it -- were made on the basis of what such steps might cost." Well, what about it, Mr. P.?

Wingnutologists of a generous bent like myself always find ourselves thrown on the horns of an old dilemma. Conservatives: lying or stupid? Let's say this time old Mitch isn't lying. He's just, well, a little bit sheltered—can't recognize facts in front of his nose, when they range so far afield from his Gilded Age experience.

Ordinary families—the sort of paycheck-to-paycheck folks who conservatives are always pretending to speak for, but about whose reality they actually have no idea—hold meetings like this all the time. Around kitchen tables, not agency boardrooms. Anyone who's had one—anyone who's lived on an austerity budget—can recognize the scene. You cut corners. You do it without thinking twice. You work actively to repress what the consequences might be for the future—how it might end up costing you more more in the future. Charitably, Mitchell Pearlstein has never suffered through such a family meeting. So he can't recognize one when he sees it—can't recognize a culture of austerity when it's right in front of his nose.