NPR's Williams ignores falsehood in Palin's claim about "bridge to nowhere"

Summary: On NPR, Renee Montagne asked Juan Williams of Gov. Sarah Palin's claims about the "bridge to nowhere": "Is it surprising that she keeps saying that, or repeating that she told Congress, 'No thanks,' on that bridge?" Rather than note that Palin's assertion is false, Williams responded in part by saying: "Well, what they're [the McCain campaign] emphasizing is that she, you know, did eventually turn down the idea without disclosing that early on she was, as you said, campaigning for it back in 2006. ... So, it's a matter of, you know, omission in their view."

On the September 9 edition of NPR's Morning Edition, co-host Renee Montagne noted that Gov. Sarah Palin, "[w]hen she ran for ... governor," supported the "bridge to nowhere," and Montagne asked NPR news analyst Juan Williams, "Is it surprising that she keeps saying that, or repeating that she told Congress 'No thanks' on that bridge?" Rather than point out that Palin's claim to have "told Congress, 'No thanks,' on that bridge" is false, Williams responded in part by saying, "Well, what they're [the McCain campaign] emphasizing is that she, you know, did eventually turn down the idea without disclosing that early on she was, as you said, campaigning for it back in 2006. ... So, it's a matter of, you know, omission in their view."

As Media Matters for America previously noted, Palin did not tell Congress " '[T]hanks, but no thanks' on that 'bridge to nowhere,' " as she claimed in her September 3 vice presidential acceptance speech. First, she was not in a position to do so. As The Daily Howler's Bob Somerby noted, a year before Palin was elected governor, Congress abdicated responsibility for determining how the money would be spent. After authorizing funds to be spent specifically on the bridge project in August 2005, in an appropriations bill in November 2005, Congress earmarked the money for Alaska, but specified that it did not have to be spent on the bridge. Somerby wrote, "[N]o one had to 'tell Congress' anything about the Bridge to Nowhere, because Congress had removed itself from decision-making about the project." Second, Palin did not refuse the funds or reimburse the federal government; Alaska reportedly kept the federal funds. Williams mentioned neither point.

From the September 9 edition of NPR's Morning Edition:

MONTAGNE: Now, some of the lines that Sarah Palin has used in speeches have run into trouble with fact checkers. I mean for one, the infamous "bridge to nowhere." When she ran for government, governor rather, in fact, she supported that "bridge to nowhere" and only sort of stopped supporting it at a point in which it became untenable. Is it surprising that she keeps saying that, or repeating that she told Congress, "No thanks," on that bridge?

WILLIAMS: Well, no, I mean, from the perspective of people who are running the McCain campaign, they want her image to be that of a reformer and to fit Senator McCain's image as the maverick and apart from the GOP, so what they're emphasizing --

MONTAGNE: Even if it's not correct?

WILLIAMS: Well, what they're emphasizing is that she, you know, did eventually turn down the idea without disclosing that early on she was, as you said, campaigning for it back in 2006. And what they want to emphasize again, is that she took on Frank Murkowski, the former Republican governor, and others, and even supported ethics reform in the state government. So it's a matter of, you know, omission in their view.

MONTAGNE: In their view.

—L.K.A.