I think Mr. Thompson--like most of the press and most Democrats--has the Bridge to Nowhere story wrong. As Bob Somerby points out in the 9/1/08 Daily Howler, Congress originally allocated $442 million for two "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska, but in NOVEMBER 2005 dropped the requirement that the money be spent on bridges and, instead, gave the money to Alaska with no strings attached. After NOVEMBER 2005, therefore, Congress had nothing to do with the money; it was a purely Alaskan affair. Palin didn't become governor until November 2006--ONE YEAR AFTER Congress had already given the funds to Alaska. Thompson makes it sound like Palin might be telling the truth--if not the whole truth. But the truth is that Palin never told Congress anything. The truth is that Palin is not exaggerating, not spinning. The truth is that Palin is lying.

If congress gives her the money for a bridge (which is clearly what happened if the money remained in the budget--it was just labeled differently for political reasons) and she didn't spend it on a bridge she though wasteful, then how is she lying?

She's lying because she was for the bridge, before it became politically expedient to be against it. That happened when it garnered the "Bridge to Nowhere" in the press.

And she gladly accepted the pork. She paints herself as a reformer, when sadly she is not. She takes the Fed dollars and has used lobbyists. These are facts.

Alaska receives more Fed dollars than it sends the gov't in taxes. So, she's being hypocritical in addition to lying.

She has spoken to the American people twice. Both times she claimed that she said "thanks but no thanks" when congress offered her money for the bridge(s) to nowhere.

That is a flat out lie, not spin. John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning against EARMARKS, not the bridge to nowhere. If you request hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for one wasteful project, but then those dollars on another.... How is that earmark reform?

She's lying because she keeps portraying herself as having told Congress "Thanks, but no Thanks" on the funds for "bridge to nowhere".

But Congress had already removed the earmarks for this infamous bridge project over a year before Palin was even elected governor.

The following Wikipedia entry contains links which make the timeline remarkably clear, and include a wonderful picture of the (always snarky?) Governor Palin holding up a T-shirt with the words Nowhere, Alaska on it as she campaigned for the bridge.

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When she finally capitulated on building the bridge it was basically because Congress had told Alaska that they weren't going to pay for it and not that other way around and the "real-time" quotations from Palin make this quite clear, e.g.:

Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.

~ AK Gov. Sarah Palin

These aren't the words of somehow boldly refusing Congressional funds. They're the words of someone disappointedly acknowledging that the funds aren't coming.

I don't see any other way to interpret the factual timeline here than as a shameless attempt by the McCain campaign to pass off BS in an effort to create a myth about a photogenic lady who isn't what she says she is.

She's lying because she has repeatedly stated that she "TOLD CONGRESS 'thanks, but no thanks.'" She didn't tell Congress anything. She wasn't governor until 2006, and by that time, Congress had already allocated the money to Alaska. As Bob Somerby so clearly articulates in today's Howler post (www.dailyhowler.com), Palin is stating that she stood up to Congress and Washington, DC, when she did no such thing.
(When reading Thompson's FAQ this morning, I missed the fact that he left out Palin's claim of having "told Congress," so his report is technically accurate, though it overlooks a crucial aspect of her claim.)