Palin's "Airport To Nowhere"

The Wall Street Journal's credibility takes a hit today as it reports on Gov. Palin's federal funding requests for Alaska. The problem? The WSJ sloppily declines to identify which of these requests were hypocritical earmarks and which requests were normal legislative appropriations:

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.

Amazingly, the WSJ readily states McCain's position, i.e. there's nothing wrong with funding worthy projects if they are openly debated, authorized and funded via legislation, not shady, buried earmarks:

[McCain] has never sought earmarks for his state of Arizona and vows to veto pork-barrel spending bills that come to his desk as president, saying these projects should go through normal budget review. And he derides the argument that states often make: that they're funding important projects.

"If they're worthy projects they can be authorized and appropriated in a New York minute," he explained on his campaign bus earlier this year, before Gov. Palin joined the ticket. "If they're worthy projects I know they'd be funded."

But then the WSJ throws all of Palin's requests into one universal pork heap, not making any distinction. Again, SLOPPY.

Seeking to reincarnate that infamous poster child of pork, the Bridge to Nowhere, the writer tosses out this jewel as an example of Palin's runaway earmarks/pork/requests/whatever-we're-on-a-roll:

[Palin] also has sought $4.5 million to upgrade an airport on a Bering Sea island that has a year-round population of less than 100.

So where exactly is this mysterious Airport to Nowhere?

According to this document (PDF; thanks, Ed), the Aleutian backwater that needs an airport upgrade is Adak Island. (Example of more WSJ sloppiness: the amount is $3.2 million, not $4.5 million).

OUTRAGE! How dare Palin attempt to pork up some ghost town speck of rock in the Pacific? Airport to Nowhere indeed! There's no good reason for this federal spending.

Or is there?

Adak Island is the new home port of the newest sensor in the US ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, the one-of-a-kind Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX):

 

The SBX has been on station off the coast of Adak since early 2007, and played a key role in tracking/targeting the toxic spy satellite shoot-down this past February. Positioned in the North Pacific, the SBX is ready to detect ICBMs launched from Asia towards the US:

[Missile Defense Agency Director] Obering said this radar is so powerful that if it were located in Chesapeake Bay, it could track an object the size of a baseball over San Francisco.

While stationed off Adak, the SBX's crew of 85 will be frequently transiting through the island's airport. With Adak's harsh weather and usually socked-in conditions, it seems that $3.2 million is a small price to pay for the safe transport of this important crew.

Unless bête noire Palin requested it, of course.

UPDATE: Thanks, Doubleplusundead, AOSHQ, Conservative Grapevine and RedState.

Here's the best refutation of all this Palin earmarking nonsense in three concise words: Governors Cannot Earmark.

UPDATE: For those of you visiting for the milpr0n instead of electionpr0n, for scale, here's the SBX at Pearl Harbor en route to Alaska. Here are some SBX construction photos. It's basically our most advanced radar mounted on a self-propelled oil platform. Each pontoon is the size of a Trident nuclear submarine.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Back to the earmark discussion, Glenn makes a good point:

Meanwhile, I was watching Bill Whittle on Pajamas TV talking about this, and he was very strongly making the point that it's a very different thing for a Governor to be accepting earmarks than it is for a Senator to be enacting them. I think that's a valid point as far as it goes, but it has its limits. For example, if I were really lobbying my Senators for $50 million in earmarked funding to build the PorkBusters Museum in Knoxville, people might reasonably question the depth of my commitment to porkbusting, notwithstanding that I'm not a Senator. It's not at all clear that Sarah Palin was doing anything like that, but if she were, it would undercut claims that she's always exhibited an unwavering commitment to fighting earmarks.

As I discuss in the comments, the impetus for this post was the WSJ's craptacular article. According to the writer, ANY federal spending by Palin is now questionable and/or hypocritical ... even federal spending targeted at a recently-federal property (Adak Airport was Adak Naval Air Station until Congress BRAC'd/foisted it on the State of Alaska in 1997) which mainly services a federal military mission and federal employees.

The Wall Street Journal's irresponsible ambiguity has only added more confusion to a topic that liberals were simply not prepared to discuss intelligently. Until Palin appeared in their hypocrisy crosshairs, when was the last time you heard ANY Democrat complain one iota about earmarks? They are fighting on unfamiliar ground and it shows in their half-baked arguments (all federal spending = earmarks).

Comments

[Chip]

Unilaterally debating the importance of the airport does little to counter the point you're making about the WSJ article.

Did the proposed funding update for the airport come in the form of an earmark or not? Did it go thru the proper budgetary review and debate process or not? The McCain campaign and Mrs. Palin have made blanket statements against earmarks...............implicit in that is any of these types of expenditures outside the normal budgetary process.

Earmarks grew out of everyone deciding what was needed where OUTSIDE the proper forum. Taken individually, you can try to justify them all, as you have. The justification can be repeated at some level for thousands of these earmarks. But you must look at the process that gets them, their cumulative effect on the budget, and their total political implication.

Your blog adds little to the differentiation you accuse the WSJ of not making.

[Cuffy Meigs]

Did the proposed funding update for the airport come in the form of an earmark or not?

We don't know.

My only point (besides highlighting some godawful reporting by the usually rigorous WSJ) was to nip any catchy "Airport to Nowhere" sloganeering in the bud --- whether it was funded by earmark or otherwise.

[Paul]

I'm a little puzzled by the airport - if an upgrade is needed for national defense reasons shouldn't the people in charge of national defense pay for it? They have quite a lot of money, after all. Even if it's run as a civilian effort (I have no idea how such things are organized) it doesn't seem to be Alaska's direct concern - either it's still down to the DoD, or to the civilian contractor.

[Cuffy Meigs]

The Adak Airport indeed was once a Naval Air Station; it was BRAC'd (i.e. closed) in 1997, and handed over to Alaska. If you look at the funding PDF linked above, you'll see that the request is routed through the DoD.

[joejm65]

Nice article. Now where's the article about Obama's earmark requests for Illinois? I'll wait....

[bgates]

Unilaterally debating
That's the stupidest pair of words that have ever appeared on the internet.

[gp]

"... if it were located in Chesapeake Bay, it could track an object the size of a baseball over San Francisco." That is an amazing radar. How do they get it to see over the horizon like that?

[Cuffy Meigs]

I think he was talking about a baseball in space above SFO, like an ICBM.

[Gekkobear]

"Did the proposed funding update for the airport come in the form of an earmark or not?"

Let me state one more fact you missed. Earmarks vs. regular funding bills is a decision made in Congress by the House and Senate.

Now, perhaps Ms. Palin went to the House, pretended to be a Representative, and asked for this funding specifically as an earmark and not as regular funding... but I doubt that is your claim.

But I'm curious.

Is your claim:

A) Palin is a Congressperson who decides what will and will not be an earmark.

B) States should never ask for or receive any Federal Money of any kind for any reason.

C) I wasn't thinking and I'm going to wander off now and pretend I wasn't this clueless.

D) The Republican Congresspeople from Alaska are corrupt, and I'm glad Palin has taken to smacking them around.

Go ahead, take your time. Then pick the answer you're happiest with. Or the one that makes Palin look bad.

Oh, and before you answer again; read the link in the update titled "Governors Cannot Earmark". It might help avoid this sort of embarrassment in the future.

[ic]

Some "earmarks" to fund public projects for citizens of a state can be justified.

But can any one say an earmark of $1 million to a wife's employer, a private entity, who gave the wife an almost 200% pay raise from over $100k salary to over $300k justified?

[Chip]

Earmarks don't only come solely from the largesse of the Representative or Senator..........more often than not they are solicited by local officials and come into being if they can successfully lobby their Congressional representatives..........thus, the nature of the Federal earmarks attributed to Palin in the WSJ article. A rose by any other name is still a rose.... If it's worthy as a program, expenditure, whatever, then it's worthy of the scrutiny that goes with going thru the normal budget process (A position staked out by Sen. McCain, by the way).

The McCain/Palin ticket (heavy on the Palin part of that) is running around the country preaching that THEY find earmarks wrong, that THEY are not soliciting them. Mr. McCain's record on that issue is above reproach. Mrs. Palin's is a long way from practicing what she's now preaching and THAT was the point of the WSJ article.

But slamming the WSJ article and using the small airbase as an example of an earmark for the good of the nation doesn't change the fact that: a) She seeks them regularly (and with Sen Stevens at the helm of very powerful committees she's successful) and b) it remains an expenditure outside the normal budgetary process, which is transparent and subject to controls that earmarks are not.

As for whether the Alaskan Congressional Representation is corrupt or not...........we'll have to let the legal system run its course on Sen. Stevens before we can answer that. I'm sure it will be in the WSJ.

[J]

There are a number of "airports to nowhere" in the north Atlantic and north Pacific, and though used infrequently, they can be handy. If you were clinging to a seat cushion in 35 degree water slowly freezing to death, you might change your mind about whether upgrading them to, say, CAT 3 approach capability was worth $4.5 million.

"That is an amazing radar. How do they get it to see over the horizon like that?"

That almost sounds like you don't think over the horizon RADAR exists. Please, please tell me that's not the case. Even Art History majors know how to use Google, don't they? Here's the Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar

[Chip]

Note to bgates: google the words "unilateral debate" and review the entries...........how about adding something to the topic besides snark