Wasn’t the United States about to crumble?

The New York Times reports today that investigators have found what may be a design flaw in the bridge that collapsed Minneapolis a week ago.

The Federal Highway Administration swiftly responded by urging all states to take extra care with how much weight they place on bridges of any design when sending construction crews to work on them. Crews were doing work on the deck of the Interstate 35W bridge here when it gave way, hurling rush-hour traffic into the Mississippi River and killing at least five people.

This, of course, if true, would also mean that the politically motivated panic attacks blaming Bush (who apparently wants bridges to fall on people) were all wrong. Really, any tragedy can now be engaged to scare the holy living hell out of Americans, followed by a call to expand bureaucracies and raise taxes. Reasonable people, I hope, will see that this tragedy had nothing to do with Clinton, Bush or, if this report is true, funding.

Then again, if you believe more taxes and more regulation and more government are the answer to virtually every problem we face — and it seems as if that is a growing default position for many people — it’s easy to see how anything can be transformed into a question of politics.

UPDATE: Sirota goes bananas. I respond. More bananas. I respond again.