As I am sure all of you have heard, a bridge in Minneapolis has collapsed.

Of course, given that it's August -- which is a s-l-o-w news month -- and given the ideological leanings of the mainstream media, I'm sure we'll soon find out that a Republican is responsible for this whole catastrophe.

Either Governor Tim Pawlenty will be at fault for not personally fixing the bridge or Bush will be held responsible for not flying to Minnesota fast enough or maybe even some federal agency will be given the blame because it should have caught the mistake, blah, blah, blah, whatever, as long as they can find a way to pin the blame on a Republican somehow.

However, the sad reality is that the only surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often given that, "Twenty-seven percent of America's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete."

You see, building new roads and bridges is sexy -- a flashy use of taxpayers' dollars that gets attention. But, maintaining existing bridges and roads, well, that's boring. Maybe at the "local, local" level, people care about that sort of thing, but maintaining bridges and roads doesn't win you a lot of votes.

Maybe that'll change -- for a while -- because of this tragedy. But, it's a shame that people had to lose their lives to get us focused on making sure that the government is keeping our infrastructure sound.