“This tunnel will be a bargain.” — Sen. John Forbes Kerry, 2006.
It’s reassuring to know that Congress’ so-called Super Committee will have at least one solon on it who has a track record of being able to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse wherever it rears its bloated head.
How odd that John Kerry should be appointed to his august new position the very same week the Big Dig bargain tunnel of which he spoke so proudly has now sprung another “sinkhole.” We are informed that the sinkhole “poses no risk” to motorists, even though the Dig has already spent $3.5 million addressing the problem, with another $11.5 million budgeted to correct this latest fiasco.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Consultants evaluating the problem are at a loss to explain why the area has settled so much.”
But don’t forget, this tunnel will be a bargain. Of course, the occasional setback could still occur. In which case you might want to paraphrase another of Liveshot’s famous questions: “Can I get me a submarine here?”
Without getting bogged down in the details, which in the spirit of transparency finally have been revealed four years after they were first noticed, the geniuses who built the bargain Big Dig tried to freeze some of the land under the tunnel. Imagine their shock when they discovered that what is frozen also can thaw.
Among other things, the melting water ruined a huge drainage pipe, a high-voltage electrical duct and even buckled pavement in the (above-ground) Postal Service parking lot.
At least that’s what you’ve read in the papers, anyway. But at that same ribbon-cutting where Liveshot told us the tunnel would be a bargain, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank told us that much of the Big Dig’s bad press “has been manufactured by the media.”
You know, like the made-up headlines about the Jamaica Plain woman being crushed by a 3-ton slab of concrete falling from the tunnel ceiling.
That’s why Kerry lectured the media this week about how they should stop covering the Tea Party.
The thing about Liveshot is, not only does he always recognize a boondoggle when he sees one, but he also knows how to reach across the aisle to achieve a bipartisan solution. As Kerry observed just last week, “I hope Americans will understand how craven and empty and hollow and contradictory the Republican position is.”
Is that the pot calling the kettle black or what? Or maybe it was just another Kerry “botched joke.” All I know is, this tunnel will be a bargain.
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