An often-welcome ambassador: The first lady at the National Press Club recently. AP photo by Gerald Herbert.
by Mark Silva
First Lady Laura Bush, who already had planned a trip to Minneapolis on Friday for events including the Republican Party's summer meeting in its 2008 convention city, will make another stop there in the morning: The scene of the collapsed I-35 bridge on the Mississippi River.
President Bush, who had not planned to travel to Minnesota, now plans to go there on Saturday, the White House announced this evening, with details to follow.
Mrs. Bush will visit the "Interstate 35W Bridge Collapse Overlook'' late in the morning as well as visiting the Emergency Operation Command Center to meet with volunteers and first responders, according to the White House.
The first lady will then simply "drop by'' the Republican National Committee Summer Meeting, where she had been on the agenda along with spokesmen for some of the party's presidential candidates, before addressing the Helping Americas Youth Fourth Regional Conference. at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.
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Comments
Will the GOP keep its convention in Saint Paul?
Posted by: athena | August 2, 2007 4:18 PM
In a sea of conflict in the nation, Laura Bush is in a class by herself: first class. Too bad her name is Bush; otherwise she would be really worthy of consideration for president.
Posted by: Ogden | August 2, 2007 4:45 PM
Before to long Fox Noise Channel will be calling this a "terrorist attack".
Posted by: John E | August 2, 2007 5:45 PM
The convention will stay in St. Paul. The I35W bridge goes through Minneapolis. I35E goes through St. Paul.
Posted by: Julie | August 2, 2007 5:56 PM
Where's Brownie when we need him?....hmmm, thankfully he's gone.
Posted by: Bill | August 2, 2007 6:39 PM
Laura! Listen carefully. If we weren't spending $12,000,000,000 billion a month on the occupation of Iraq we would have money to spend on infrastructure. The states are starved due to budget cuts in block grants they used to get--prior to the tax cuts and prior to the Iraq conflict. Just think of what $12,000,000,000 a month could do to rebuild the infrastructure in this country... the jobs, the safety. We could spend $12,000,000,000 a month for one year fixing everything up and then shift and spend that money on healthcare, education and host of other NEEDS of the American People--rather than spending it on Dick Cheney's pet projects--invading countries around the world and insuring the top 1% remain the top 1%...
You go girl.
Posted by: Jerome | August 2, 2007 8:12 PM
Jerome, actually states have been swimming in cash the past few years. And work in the interstates is usually a federal and state combined project, with most money coming from the feds.
Posted by: John D | August 2, 2007 8:40 PM
The definitive Stepford Wife isn't going to make any difference in what already happened. Laura's husband is responsible for America being bled dry for his vanity war, all because, as W said, "They traad t' kill mah Daddy." Can anyone imagine the utter STUPIDITY of one man creating such widespread tragedy? If fact, yes. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin for two.
Posted by: Jim | August 2, 2007 8:41 PM
Wow Mrs. Bush is going to Minneapolis to see the collapsed bridge. Shame on her for making a bad thing something good for her PR. I do not want her wasting my tax dollars. I wish her and her husband would give my money back. Otherwise they are nothing to me.
Posted by: Ryan | August 2, 2007 11:13 PM
The WHITE House is executing yet another
in-the-sky, on-the-road
PR blitz!
Please, oh please, do NOT
remind this WHITE House
of K-A-T-R-I-N-A; Sooo many
promises manufactured, only
to die with time and
THE lie.
Travel to the Twin Cities,
Laura and George and Karl,
and Inc.+ We're closing our
eyes and our ears to your
donothing talk and walk.
Posted by: ABE | August 3, 2007 12:10 AM
It's true. We have a government that will spend TRILLIONS of dollars (not to mention thousands of young American lives) trying to run some pisant country that isn't worth 20 cents high retail. but they won't spend an extra 50 million to reinforce that rusty span over the big yazoo river in Bullballocks Nawth Carolina or any other rusty rickety scrap heap hanging precariously over any inland waterway. They let old people get overcharged for medicine that they've been convinced keeps them alive, then turn a blind eye while the American middle class ascends the endangered species list due to corporate greed that cuts our wages and benefits, eliminates our vacations, pensions, and healthcare; Poisons us with the industrial cast off wastes dumped into the same lakes and waterways that the bridges are decomposing over, all the while marketing to us products that they have to sell at ever increasing prices that we can no longer afford to buy. People! We absolutely have to WAKE UP! STAND UP! SCREAM! YELL! THREATEN! But for GOD'S sake do SOMETHING! We're at the end of the line, the end of our rope, the end of options. It may already BE unfixable. We have GOT to stand up and make these STUPID GREEDY Politicians and CORPORATE BLOODSUCKERS toe the line or we're ALL gonna burn, This isn't funny anymore. Our kids are getting their asses shot off in a country that we wouldn't stop to pee on if it were on fire (Literally). We're ALL going broke and losing EVERYTHING WE'VE worked our entire LIVES for and now we can't even afford a tank of gas to get to work. And if we do scrape together our change and buy the tank of gas...Then the DAMNED Bridge collapses and we lose not only the tank of gas but the DAMNED car too and maybe even our LIVES! This is so far beyond unacceptable it buries the needle on my O*TF*CK*NGR*G*OUS-O-METER. Write your congressman, email your congressman, dial the telephone and SCREAM at your congressman! But for GOD'S sake don't just sit there and let this CR*P go on even a SECOND longer. We have GOT take this country BACK. Our Government has been selling us like common cattle to the highest bidder for going on 50 years now. And it has to STOP!
Posted by: James Griffin | August 3, 2007 3:08 AM
AS USUAL THE VILLAGE IDIOT DROPS THE BALL. HE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN IN MINNEAPOLIS. IS HE GING TO FLY OVER LIKE IN KATRINA OR ACTUALLY GO TO THE SITE
Posted by: Michael A Braeback | August 3, 2007 6:21 AM