Iraq and the Tram

Portland, haven’t you had about enough of this tram project? Was there some big vacuum in our lives, when you said to yourselves, “We really need to be mislead by politicians right now?” Did you say, “There just aren’t enough of our leaders getting us into unnecessary adventures these days”? Was there some national shortage of lies and deception that our local team rushed into fill? “Please, someone help with this shortage of bad ideas, and then, throw in some incredible expenses with no end in sight!”
The Oregonian and OHSU should just go ahead and say it: “If we canceled the tram right now it would send the wrong message to the haters of freedom everywhere.” Sam Adams should boldly proclaim that when the first tram arrives atop OHSU, the riders will be greeted as liberators. After all, when you look at the entire South Waterfront project, it has liberated us from around 500 million in future dollars. And there is no end in sight, just as there is no end on the costs in Iraq, which will one day hit the trillion-dollar mark. Iraq is so tragic with so much loss of life. Did we really need a local government embarrassment to add even the slightest aggravation to our already heavy hearts?
So on top of all the reasons to be angry about the tram, there’s the question, “Why now? Why’d you have to do it now?” Was there something going around back in 2002? Did our politicians catch an early version of the bird flu – a version that just makes you delusional and stupid? Was this some post-9/11, blank-check, spending comfort zone thing that you wanted to wallow in for the next ten years? Iraq and the Tram: One’s an unnecessary, expensive, ill-conceived misadventure and then you have Iraq.