North Star Writers Group

Barely a week has passed since the I-35W bridge collapse, and as reliably as the sun rises in the east, liberal demagogues here in Minnesota are using the very deaths their environmental extremism helped cause to force even more left-wing policies on the citizenry than it otherwise ever could.

The bodies still haven't been retrieved from the Mississippi River, into which they plunged – due more than anything else to liberals' rigid refusal to spend any money on roads and bridges – and they are already exploiting the tragedy to ram higher gas taxes, and everything else the far left couldn't get in the regular legislative session, down the throats of Minnesotans. There is simply no telling what unrelated miscellany a special session ostensibly dedicated solely to road infrastructure will yield, or if that purported intent will even be substantially altered. One can only hope that Gov. Tim Pawlenty finds the courage of President Bush, who today said any federal gas tax hike without a substantial change in the way the revenue is spent will meet his veto.

Perhaps this is unique to Minnesota. After all, this is the place that put the word "fune-rally" into the political lexicon after the very same liberals turned the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's funeral into a disgusting display of hateful partisanship just a week before election day. But I don't think so. From Iraq to Hurricane Katrina, there is no event of death, destruction or tragedy the left hasn't used to score political points.

This is despicable enough by itself, but what should really be noticed in this is far more subtle. We should not get so distracted by the sleaziness of it that we miss the truth that liberals don't want us to notice – the utter failure of their ideas and policies, which these events revealed for all to see.

Katrina showed that 40 years’ worth of unfettered corrupt liberalism resulted in a New Orleans so lacking a moral center that when a hurricane temporarily removed the vestiges of law and authority, a third-world cesspool of violence and looting immediately erupted in its wake.

The bridge collapse and its resulting avoidable deaths were the consequences of neglecting road infrastructure for the sake of environmental correctness. And the needless loss of 3,000 innocents slaughtered on 9/11 was the culmination of a series of bombings ignored by a Clinton administration that was blind to the very real threat of Islamic terrorism – a threat to which the left inexplicably remains blind, so convinced they are in their naive peacenikism that terrorists can and should be reasoned with or placated. This ideology is supported by their complete and utter hatred of President Bush.

So the left exploits for political gain the entirely needless deaths for which their liberal policies are largely responsible. Not only do most never make this connection and hold the left accountable, but somehow they manage to not even get taken out behind the woodshed for this truly contemptible strategy of the end (socialism) justifying any – and I do mean any – means required to obtain it. For if even death itself is not beyond the pale, then there is truly nothing to which they will not stoop in their quest for power.

Luckily for Minnesota, there was an election right after the Wellstone "fune-rally" for its citizens to vent their anger at that outrageous stunt that made the state look so bad. Sen. Norm Coleman and Governor Tim Pawlenty were elected as a result, completing its total backfiring on those who pulled it.

There is no such immediate response mechanism in this instance. One can only hope that good people are both observant and have long memories. For if they do not, one cannot believe that those who have clearly demonstrated they have no limits in the pursuit of power will have any should they actually acquire it. And then it won't be just those driving over old bridges who have reason for fear.

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