Star Tribune metro columnist Nick Coleman regularly disgraces the newspaper that pays his salary. Less than twelve hours after the Highway 35W Mississippi River bridge collapsed last year, the Star Tribune ran Coleman’s column blaming the collapse on Governor Tim Pawlenty and others who had opposed tax increases. We wrote about the column (now unavailable online) here. The column made no sense. It was also false and defamatory.
As Mitch Berg recalls, Coleman also appeared on MSNBC the Saturday morning after the collapse and again blamed the Pawlenty administration for the collapse. Coleman’s performance was nothing more than self-aggrandizing political theater.
Earlier this month the National Transportation Safety Board released its findings on the bridge collapse. The NTSB concluded that under-designed gusset plates and the weight on the bridge deck were the primary causes of the bridge collapse. The NTSB presentations are accessible here.
Following the release of the NTSB findings, Coleman returned to the subject of the bridge collapse — not to apologize to the officials of the Pawlenty administration or correct his previous imputations of blame, but rather to reiterate them. Mitch Berg demonstrates the fatuity of Coleman’s column in the post linked at his name above.
Coleman’s fellow metro columnist Katherine Kersten also demonstrates the fatuity of Coleman’s column. Kersten doesn’t identify Coleman by name in her column this morning, though she does find state senator Jim Carlson, state senator Steve Murphy, Rep. Jim Obserstar and Minnesota Democratic Party chairman Brian Melendez guilty of falsely exploiting the bridge collapse for petty political purposes.
The same rationale that condemns these public officials also condemns Nick Coleman. Indeed, Kersten’s list is one on which Nick Coleman deserves special recognition.
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