NYC Letter: Don't Know Much, Part IV -- Brent Spence Bridge III

Day 1,194 of CHOPE

Mr. Obama is cocooned from blowback from his errors, longueurs, misstatements, flubs, brain fades, snits, contradictions, fairy tales, phony claims and lies.* What has spun Mr. Obama's hermetic cocoon? His stifling outsized ego? The move-along-no-story-here press? A staff not up to correcting the boss? Whatever has spun his cocoon, it does not serve him well as he goes on to repeat the same errors, etc. To wit.

Last September to drum up support for his DOA jobs bill, Mr. Obama stood below the Brent Spence Bridge and bemoaned its "functional obsolescence" and suggested it was just the sort of project that would directly benefit from passage of his "shovel-ready" jobs bill. So c'mon let's pass that bill! [Suddenly the oxygen is sucked from the room.] Except the Brent Spence Bridge was in good repair, "functionally obsolete" referred to its load capacity, a second bridge was being built to relieve that load, that second bridge wasn't "shovel ready", and it didn't qualify for funding under Mr. Obama's jobs bill.

Background here.

Mr. Obama's little Brent Spence Bridge fairy tale earned him three Pinocchios from WaPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler. Mr. Kessler pulled his four-Pinocchio punch because Mr. Obama was employing "symbolism". And that should have been the end of the story. But Mr. Obama has come back for a four-Pinocchio encore.

I sent them a jobs bill that would have put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work repairing our roads, our bridges, schools, transit systems, along with saving the jobs of cops and teachers and firefighters, creating a new tax cut for businesses. They said no. I went to the Speaker’s hometown, stood under a bridge that was crumbling. Everybody acknowledges it needs to be rebuilt. Maybe he doesn’t drive anymore. Maybe he doesn’t notice how messed up it was. They still said no. There are bridges between Kentucky and Ohio where some of the key Republican leadership come from, where folks are having to do detours an extra hour, hour-and-a-half drive every day on their commute because these bridges don’t work. They still said no.

Mr. Obama,
blaming Republicans for his go-nowhere jobs bill
REMARKS AT THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION
TRADES DEPARTMENT CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON April 30, 2012 (White House)

The Fact Checker
OBAMA'S WHOPPER ABOUT
AN OHIO RIVER BRIDGE
By Glenn Kessler

April 30, 2012 (WaPo) - An administration official said the president was referring to the Sherman Milton Bridge, which actually connects Indiana and Kentucky, near Louisville. Back in September, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) had to shut down the bridge because a 2½ inch crack had been discovered.

... Shortly after the shutdown, a Transportation Department blog declared that this bridge was "another example of why this [the president’s jobs bill] is so crucial."

But here’s the rub: While Obama claimed "these bridges don’t work", the Sherman Milton Bridge has already been repaired, ahead of schedule, and motorists are driving over it again. It turned out that, rather than being an example of an aging bridge, the crack that had been discovered actually had been there ever since the bridge was constructed in 1962, because of the type of steel used at the time. Other repairs were ordered, and the bridge reopened nearly three months ago — without needing any of Obama’s jobs-bill funds.

Another nearby bridge, the Kennedy Bridge, will soon undergo redecking, but officials said the work will not lead to a shutdown. Again, the work is being done without Obama’s jobs-bill money.

... Calling out the Republicans at the Brent Spence bridge was bad enough, given the bipartisan support for its reconstruction. But pointing to the Sherman Milton Bridge, which already has been repaired without funding from the president’s jobs bill, is ridiculous.

Perhaps the president was using outdated talking points, but that’s little excuse. Given that the president earned Three Pinocchios before, we have little choice but to up the ante this time.

FINALLY! THE AWARD BEFITTING THE FAIRY TALE
There Is No Higher Rating

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UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air summarizes:

Obama meant the Sherman Milton Bridge, which links Kentucky and Indiana, not Ohio. ... Obama got the geography wrong, got the bridge status wrong, got the problem wrong, and neither of the two projects need the funding he touted.

Leave it to Mr. Obama to do a thorough job of it.

CHOPE.

Cocooned.

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* Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a whole collection of this stuff called Obamateurisms.