Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Defying Age - 3.25.11

Governor Bill Milliken, who occasionally advises Michigan’s current governor, turns 89 tomorrow. That has Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinking about the question of age.

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Former Governor Bill Milliken turns eighty-nine tomorrow. When I talked to him a couple weeks ago, he said, after discussing the current Michigan budget, that I keep getting his age wrong.

“I am actually fifty-three,” he said, before bursting into laughter. Talking to Milliken always perks me up, because I am thirty years younger than the man who I always think of as “the governor.”

And I certainly hope I still have a sense of humor at his age, though by that time I may well want to give up talking about state budgets. I find it very encouraging that there are a great many people who are now living to tremendous ages, and enjoying life.

A week ago, I went to visit former Attorney General Frank Kelley in Florida. He had me hop into his convertible and we sped towards Marco Island, where we had lunch with a tough old Massachusetts politician, Francis X. Bellotti.

Kelley is eighty-six; Bellotti is about to be eighty-eight and looks sixty-five. The two Franks talked about old wars and about John F. Kennedy, who both knew. “When you saw him, you didn’t just think he should be president. You thought he was the answer to everything wrong in the world,” said Bellotti.

Later, on the drive back, Kelley sighed. “It’s hell getting old,” he said. “How would you know?” I wanted to ask.

Now, most of the college students I teach would find the idea that people in their eighties could be interesting, let alone fun, hard to believe. To amuse myself last fall, I stuck an extra credit question onto a midterm. “What is the biggest reason you’re glad you aren’t me?” I asked. The smartest students replied something like …“because now I don’t have to grade thirty midterms.”

But a distressingly large number wrote something like, “Well, sorry to say this, but you are old, and I‘m not.”

One even wrote, “because I‘m at the beginning of my life and you are near the end of yours.” I suppose he thinks I should set a date with the embalmer. On the other hand, there’s Michigan Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly, who legally cannot run for re-election next year because judges in Michigan can’t be re-elected after seventy.

I can tell you one person who thinks that law is unfair: Justice Kelly’s mother, who still lives by herself, but who finally retired from her job as a reading tutor and gave up driving three years ago.

“I could still do it, but at age one hundred I thought it was time to stop,“ she told me last summer.

These folks all still have active, interesting lives. I like talking to them, partly because they can shed perspective on things happening now. They’ve been around for a few budget crises and economic downturns, and I think today’s politicians would be well advised to pick their brains on what to do about them.

Frank Kelley, who served longer as a state attorney general than anyone in American history, reminded me that he can legally serve one more four-year term.

“I think I’ll run next time, when I’m 90,” he said. I think he was joking. If I were the current attorney general, I’d certainly hope so.

Essay: Name Game - 2.7.11

As the long winter and the state’s budget woes drags on, Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says most of us are waiting for things to change -- or perhaps, trying to name a possible bridge.

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Well, the Superbowl is over, and we are now in the season of waiting. Pretty much everyone in Michigan is waiting for something, if only to see the ground again someday when the snow finally melts.

Lots of little boys, some of them past retirement age, are waiting for spring training, and for the baseball season to begin.

Hockey fans are waiting for the playoffs. Basketball fans are waiting for the Detroit Pistons to be sold. Demographers are waiting for the release of detailed census figures next month.

Then, we’ll finally know how many people our cities and counties, townships and villages have. After that, they can begin calculating how much aid they will or won’t get from the state and federal governments.

The legislature is waiting for those census figures too, so they can begin to work on new district boundaries for both legislative and congressional seats. One congressional seat is going to disappear, remember, and that has several incumbents worried.

But most of all, our lawmakers, and everyone else in Lansing, is waiting for Governor Rick Snyder’s budget.

Somehow, he has to eliminate a massive deficit, and that’s going to mean deep cuts and pain. What we don’t know yet is who’s going to suffer the most -- or to what extent the legislature will go along with everything the governor wants to do.

And we’re also waiting to see if the governor’s fellow Republicans accept his recommendation that we go ahead and authorize the building of the new Detroit River International Crossing Bridge. There’s still some opposition, but the odds are now clearly in the new bridge’s favor. What is not in favor, however, is its name.

Usually, supports and opponents alike refer to the proposed bridge by its acronym, as “DRIC.” Which, as Governor Snyder remarked recently, is a terrible name. It sounds like something you take for post-nasal drip. So, even though the bridge isn’t a done deal, people are now actively debating what to name it.

The leading contender right now, at least in terms of popularity is to call it something like the Gordie Howe International Bridge. This proposal, apparently started by the head of the Ontario Trucking Association, has a lot going for it.

Howe, who will soon be eighty-three years old, was perhaps the greatest and most popular hockey player in history. He belongs to both countries, having grown up in Canada and then come to Detroit, to play for the Red Wings. There’s no scandal and no controversy attached to his name.

But there is one potential problem. I doubt that Gordie would or could pay $100 million dollars to name the bridge after himself. These days, naming rights are big business. Think Comerica Park.

That bridge is going to cost a lot of dough. There’s an additional complication that we could turn into a plus. Two nations are involved, and each must have an equal share.

So the best solution would be an auction for naming rights on both sides of the border. Eventually, we may be driving on the Seagram-Ford Motor bridge. Or perhaps the Charter One/ Bank of Canada Span. The possibilities are endless.

Which is why I think I ought to end this essay, right about now.

Essay: Border Wars - 2.3.11

President Obama is meeting tomorrow with Canada’s prime minister to discuss important changes to border security regulations. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks we haven’t been paying enough attention.

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Well, the worst snowstorm in recorded history turned out not to live up to its billing, and civilization seems likely to go on.

Funny, but every year we always seem to forget a basic fact of life in Michigan. Which is, that it snows in the winter. We are pretty far north, you know. So much so, that a sizable chunk of Ontario is south of us. You remember Ontario, yes?

It is one province of a vast country called Canada which we know is there, but somehow, mostly forget to notice.

Canada is, by far, our biggest trading partner. The economies of Michigan and Ontario are tightly linked, so much so that if something happened to stifle trade between our two countries, we would instantly be plunged into the mother of all depressions.

Most of us know this, but we seem somehow to have an amazing sense of collective amnesia about Canada.

Incredibly, much of the debate in Michigan about whether or not to build a second bridge over the Detroit River has completely ignored that any proposal needs the willing participation of a completely independent foreign nation, known as Canada.

Keith Crain, owner of the publishing empire, has a column in this week’s Crain’s Detroit Business in which he argues in favor of letting Matty Moroun twin his Ambassador Bridge.

Amazingly, he seems unaware that Canada has emphatically said that Moroun can forget it, since a second bridge in the same spot would play havoc with traffic flow and present environmental drawbacks as well. He wouldn’t do that if it were France.

Yet somehow, we have a hard time showing Canada respect, Maybe this is because our nations have long been so close, geographically but also in many other ways.

But one group is acutely aware that Canada is a separate country: Businessmen. Ever since the 9-11 terrorist attacks a decade ago, new security precautions have made commerce an increasing nightmare of bureaucracy and bottlenecks.

You can frequently see this in the long lines of trucks waiting to get through customs on either side of the border. This is not only inconvenient, but stifles growth. These days, any American firm is going to think twice about establishing a Canadian subsidiary, and any Canadian firm is bound to do the same.

If we are serious about growing our economy, this has to change. As David Bradley, the head of the Canadian Trucking Alliance put it, “We need to restore principles of risk management at the border instead if checking everything and everyone all the time.” That’s what you might call common sense.

Tomorrow, President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are meeting in Washington to hopefully discuss sweeping changes to border regulations. This meeting hasn’t gotten the publicity of yesterday’s snow, but is potentially far more important to all of us. For many years, it was nearly as easy to cross the border between Michigan and Ontario as it was to enter Ohio.

That’s something both nations should strive to restore as fully as possible. There’s been no indication of terrorists using Canada as a base of operations. There’s every sign, however, that anything that disrupts our economies leaves our enemies only too pleased.

And we certainly don’t need to do their work for them.

Essay: Rule of Law - 1.11.11

This is supposed to be a society where everybody lives under the rule of law. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says that three people got that message yesterday, the hard way.

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It’s sometimes easy to be cynical about what we used to call “the system” back in the days when bell-bottom jeans were common.

Too often, it appears that society at all levels still functions under the golden rule, as in, he who has the gold, makes the rules.

Ideally, things are supposed to work according to the words engraved on the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington: Equal Justice Under Law.” But in practice, it too often seems that things are more like the famous New Yorker cartoon in which a judge peers down at a defendant, and asks:

“So, how much justice can you afford?“

However, three things happened yesterday that may restore a little faith in the rule of law. One was national; former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a man who once took the word “arrogant,” to new heights, was sentenced to three years in prison.

But the other two took place in Michigan. As mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick too often acted as if the laws didn’t apply to him. He kept on behaving that way, even after he was convicted of two felonies.

He’s in prison now, but yesterday, he, his father and three cohorts were back in town again, in federal court this time, pleading not guilty to charges from bribery to extortion to tax evasion.

What was interesting this time, however, was that the media and public scarcely paid attention. Once, we clamored for every detail about the self-styled hip-hop mayor’s outrageous lifestyle.

Yesterday, however, there was far less interest than before. Ten years after he burst on the scene as one of the nation’s youngest mayors, the convict Kilpatrick’s appearances in court have become so commonplace they’ve lost all power to shock.

Three years ago a top political consultant told me that no matter what, Kwame would always manage to get away with it.

Nobody’s saying that any more. The third thing affirming the rule of law also happened in a Detroit courtroom yesterday.

This time, it was in state court. The Detroit International Bridge Company has long behaved as though it were a law unto itself as well. The company, owned by billionaire trucking magnate Matty Moroun, has declared that it intends to build a second bridge next to the Ambassador Bridge, which it owns.

The government of Canada has said, no way. Various governments in the United States have refused permission as well, but the bridge company paid no attention.

It seized portions of a city park, and constructed illegal toll booths, fuel pumps and other structures. For a year, courts have been ordering the company to remove these, and to live up to its contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation.

They steadily refused to do so. But yesterday, Dan Stamper, president of the bridge company, got a nasty shock. Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards threw him in jail and fined him for contempt for refusing to obey a court order.

Later in the day, Stamper was released, and again ordered to comply. What happens next is unclear. But he was put on notice.

For democracy to really work, nobody can be above the law.

Yesterday, three men who sometimes acted as though the laws didn’t apply to them, got that message, the hard way.

Essay: Build the Bridge - 12.15.10

An early winter storm has closed Port Huron’s Blue Water Bridge and caused miles-long backups at the Ambassador Bridge. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks its clear that we need another kind of backup.

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As I write this, the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia remains closed to commercial truck traffic because of weather conditions. This has already had an effect on the economy.

General Motors has had to temporarily close its Flint Truck Assembly plant because of a lack of parts. Trucks are being diverted to Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge, but that’s snarling up the highways.

Yesterday afternoon, there were reports that trucks waiting to use the Ambassador Bridge were backed up for miles on I-75, stacked up on the overpass over the smoky and smelly Rouge.

This couldn’t be helped. The eighty-year-old, privately owned Ambassador was the only alternative. Technically, that bridge is not supposed to allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to cross.

But Ambassador Bridge management said they were waving that rule for the duration of the emergency. Given the situation, it is hard to to see what else they could do. For there simply is no backup.

After this, it ought to be very clear that we need another bridge, right now. The bad weather that closed the Blue Water Bridge wasn’t a one-time anomaly. This is what happens in winter in Canada, a lot.

Truck traffic is going to steadily get heavier and heavier, too. According to the Journal of Commerce Online, truck traffic over the Ambassador Bridge is up 18 percent this year. Traffic over the Blue Water Bridge is up 9 percent. It’s up more than ten percent in Buffalo.

Everyone knows we need a new bridge, and right now, there’s a shovel-ready project ready to go: The Detroit International River Crossing bridge, which would be built about two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge. As I’ve noted many times before, virtually everyone wants this backup span except two groups of people.

The Moroun family, who own the Ambassador Bridge, and don’t want anyone infringing on their monopoly, and the leadership of the Michigan state senate, many of whose members have taken Moroun money in the form of campaign or other contributions.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop once again refused to allow a vote on a new bridge.

Some members questioned whether a new bridge is really necessary. Others said if a new bridge is to be built, let Moroun build another private one with his money, as he has indicated he wants to do.

But Canada has flatly said that’s something it will not allow, because of reasons involving highway congestion and environmental factors. Already, people on both sides of the border, including State Representative Rashida Tlaib, have complained about truck exhaust.

Canada wants the DRIC bridge, and that nation’s transportation minister went to Lansing this week to again reaffirm that Canada will cover Michigan’s costs of building the bridge.

Michigan‘s Legislature is back in session today to clean up a bunch of mainly procedural issues. Many of the lawmakers resent being there, and want to start their holiday.

Yet as futile as what I am about to say may be, this would be a golden opportunity to hear the wakeup call this storm has sent, and authorize moving forward on a new bridge.

Otherwise, eventually, our economy is going to suffer. And Michigan’s had enough of that in the last ten years to last a lifetime.

Essay: Worrying About The General

General Motors is on a roll, with an exciting new car and a new stock offering tomorrow expected to rake in billions. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says we might want to be a little cautious.

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No doubt about it; this has been a tremendous week for General Motors. Everybody is going crazy over the Chevy Volt, the sort-of-electric car that has already won top honors as the car of the year from Motor Trend and Automobile Magazines. It’s won those awards, I should add, even though it isn’t in the showrooms yet. General Motors is also making money again -- two billion in the third quarter, four billion dollars so far for the year. And tomorrow, in the greatest anticipated sale since the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, the once-bankrupt General is expected to take in billions when it once again offers stock to the general public. That will be good for all of us. The more stock General Motors sells, the more it will be able to repay the U.S. Treasury, which invested almost fifty billion to save General Motors when it was on the point of death less than two years ago. Beyond doubt, one question has been answered: The auto bailout worked, and was worth it. Now, the public response to what Wall Street calls an IPO, or initial public offering of GM stock has been so strong and so positive that the expected price keeps going up and up. Demand seems so strong that General Motors has decided to offer even more shares to the public when trading opens tomorrow. If things go as well as expected, the taxpayers could be twelve billion richer by the end of the day, and “Government Motors” will no longer exist. At least, Washington’s share of GM will have fallen from more than sixty percent of the company to only about a third. But there’s a ghost whispering in my ear, the ghost of Jerry Flint, the dean of auto writers, who died in August. “The worst thing that could happen to GM after this mess is some big early success,“ he told me a couple years ago. He feared that could revive GM’s old unjustified arrogance. I was reminded of that today when I read that Cadillac is thinking about introducing a subcompact car tentatively called the ULC -- for Urban Luxury Compact. There is a picture of the prototype in today’s papers; it looks, if you know your entomology, like a stink bug. This may just be the stupidest idea in modern automotive history. Cadillac buyers want a look that says size and elegance. They do not think less is more and they do not vote for the Green Party. GM should know better. Cadillac tried this before in the early ‘80s with a compact Caddy called the Cimarron. It flopped, big time. All this should remind us that the reborn General Motors is still very much a work in progress. It’s management is new and largely untested. The company has shed a lot of debt, thanks to the bankruptcy process, but still has underfunded pension obligations. The Volt is still really an unknown quantity. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t buy stock in the new GM. Just remember, people lost their life’s savings last year because they held on to stock in the old GM. Wall Street is, after all, just like any other street. You need to look both ways, and be careful.

Essay: A Bridge Too Far - 9.17.10

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop has reversed himself and now says there probably won’t be a vote on a new Detroit River bridge this year. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says that is bad news for business.

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There are issues that are extremely complex, with sound arguments on both sides. But the question of building a new bridge over the Detroit River really isn’t one. Every year, billions in trade between Michigan and Ontario is dependent on the eighty-one year old Ambassador Bridge, which is owned by one man, Matty Moroun, a reclusive, eighty-three year old billionaire.

The bridge is wearing out. A U.S. safety inspection report released almost a year ago found the main span in “poor condition,” with cracked, unsound concrete that has chipped away to expose, as the Windsor Star reported, “significantly corroded reinforcing steel.”

When that became public, the Ambassador Bridge company announced that a multi-million dollar repair project would begin in July. But there are conflicting reports as to whether work has started. The bridge company really wants to build a new bridge next to the old one. But the government of Canada has flatly said no, and the United States is also refusing to issue the necessary permits.

There are serious environmental and traffic flow reasons why twinning the Ambassador Bridge would be a terrible idea. Everyone is firmly against it.

Everyone, that is, except the Moroun family, and those to whom they give money. There is an alternative that is favored by everyone from the Government of Canada to Governor Jennifer Granholm, from Oakland County’s L. Brooks Patterson to Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. It is a proposed new internationally owned and operated bridge two miles downriver from the Ambassador.

This project would be known as DRIC, for Detroit International River Crossing. Private investors could invest in DRIC, but it would be run by and for both countries. During the years of construction, it would employ up to ten thousand workers.

Canada wants and needs this bridge so badly that their government has offered to pay for Michigan’s share of the expenses -- which we would pay back later, out of toll money.

The project won house approval earlier this year, and should have met with unanimous approval in the state senate -- but it has been stalled. The Moroun family has deep pockets.

They’ve given lavishly to politicians, and they expect something in return. Yesterday, lame-duck Majority Leader Mike Bishop said he thought it was unlikely that the Senate would vote on DRIC anytime this year. That breaks a promise he made.

Bishop, who opposes DRIC, promised an up-or-down vote on the bridge in May. Now, he says he’s going back on his word because the Department of Transportation took too long to get senators the information they needed.

Without openly calling the senator a liar, most independent observers said that just wasn’t true. Business interests other than the Morouns are unhappy. Sarah Hubbard of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce thinks there’s a strong possibility the legislation would be acceptable to the senate by the end of the year. Both sides, in fact, have been negotiating in good faith.

If DRIC isn’t built, Detroit will lose even more jobs and business, something I thought the Republican Party was against. There is still hope. Bishop tried to block the smoking ban, too, but his own caucus overruled him. For Michigan’s sake, this would be an ideal time for them to do so again.

Essay: The View From Above - 7.26.10

The Upper Peninsula is a world away to some people, but it still has the same politicians and many of the same problems those below the bridge do. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry reports.

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Last week I drove across much of Michigan's vast Upper Peninsula, from St. Ignace to the Soo and west to Marquette.

I finally ended up in Michigan's northernmost point, Copper Harbor on the Lake Superior shore, more than six hundred miles from Detroit. In some ways, the UP is a parallel, if much smaller, Michigan universe from the ones we trolls inhabit.

By the way, they call us trolls, in case you hadn't heard, because we live "under the bridge." If there still are any trolls who think of the UP as a place where men with ugly hats eat pasties throughout an eternal winter, they are badly mistaken. The UP is incredibly diverse. In place of beautiful gentrified towns like Birmingham, they have Marquette, with the added beauty of Lake Superior and the harbor. There are blue-collar cities like the Soo, with neighborhoods that have seen better days.

Calumet evokes Detroit, in a way. It has vast and imposing buildings that rose in the era of the lumber and mining booms, when the city had far more people. Today, some are deserted; others house antique dealerships or art galleries in a fraction of their space.

To most Yoopers, the state's population centers are light-years away. One young woman told me she didn't much care for our big cities. Turned out she had once visited friends in Grand Rapids.

But while the Upper Peninsula may seem like another country, it's anything but. They have the same governor, the same court system, the same laws as we "trolls." They suffer from the same dysfunctional legislature and have nearly as high a jobless rate.

They are also getting ready to vote in next week's primary election. Indeed, I saw a forest of yard signs for local candidates.

Yet there seems to be little interest in the governor's race. Someone planted a bunch of Rick Snyder signs along the major roads, and I think I saw one for Pete Hoekstra. But other than that, the primacy contest was off the radar screen.

Some of that may be because Lansing is seen as being a galaxy away, and Yoopers know their votes are unlikely to affect the outcome. After all, the entire top half of Michigan contains barely three percent of the population, maybe 300,000 people.

But there is also a feeling, maybe even stronger than in the Lower Peninsula, that none of these candidates are likely to make much difference. Democrats are especially disillusioned.

Mark Dobias, a colorful lawyer based in the Soo, characterized things this way: "It's like being lost deep in a cold cedar swamp in November with a wet matchbook.

"Survival until the next morning is seriously in question." Even if the matches work, and we get a little fire going, he added that "more nights are ahead, and no rescue is in sight."

None, that is, except for the one we decide to make ourselves. The hope is to find the candidate most likely to help us do that. Yoopers are ahead of the rest of us in a sense: They've survived the collapse of two major industries, and then figured out a way to reinvent themselves, survive and in some cases prosper.

Like it or not, that‘s what all Michigan now needs to do.

Essay: Throwing Out Baby - 3.10.10

Last year the state launched Pure Michigan, a national advertising campaign to boost tourism. Now the legislature is debating what to do next. Jack Lessenberry looks at the record.

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One of the few bright spots in the Michigan economy lately has been tourism. We have one of the more fascinating and diversely attractive states in the nation. That's not news to anyone who has seen the Lake Michigan shoreline and the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

People everywhere escape to Charlevoix and Petoskey whenever they can. Nobody should go without seeing Tahquamenon Falls or the ghost copper and lumber towns of the Upper Peninsula. Everyone should experience a sunset in Copper Harbor.

For that matter, the vast and smoky world of Ford's sprawling Rouge plant also deserves to be seen -- and the company does offer tours these days. Tourism, in fact, is regularly either the second or third most important industry in Michigan, depending on whether it, or agriculture, generates the most dollars in any given year.

But while Michigan has done reasonably well in the tourism department, we've never done as we could and should have. That's largely because we've never done enough to promote our state as a tourist destination, at least until now.

Last year, for the first time ever, Michigan launched a national TV advertising campaign for itself promoting the state's natural wonders with a new slogan -- Pure Michigan.

Phil Power, founder and president of the non-profit Center for Michigan, tells me that the campaign has been a tremendous success. According to the state travel agency, the campaign brought 1.2 million new tourists to Michigan, people who wouldn't have come here if they hadn't seen the Pure Michigan ads.

That may be so, but was it worth the expense? The state tourism office hired a firm called Longwoods International to analyze that. Longwoods found that the ads brought in three times as much money as the state spent on them, or nearly $120 million.

That may even be an underestimate. Power, who is also vice-chairman of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, says the head of Michigan Travel said tourists spent an additional $250 million in the state last year. That prompted lawmakers in the state house of representatives to approve another campaign this year.

But Pure Michigan has run into a roadblock. State Senator Nancy Cassis, a Republican from Novi who is the chair of the finance committee. She has best been known recently as a skeptic about the Michigan Film Industry; she wants to cut back the tax incentives we now give producers to get them to make movies here.

And she also doesn't believe that Pure Michigan has been all that successful. As a result, the state senate wants to approve only $9.5 million for Pure Michigan which would leave the state travel agency without the funds needed for a national advertising campaign.

Yesterday, a house committee rejected that, substituting its own sensible, long-term approach. The house would set up a stable source of Pure Michigan funding in future years from the new sales tax dollars flowing into businesses related to tourism.

That would seem to make a lot of sense. Hopefully, this can all be worked out in a conference committee in a way that won't be penny-wise and dollar foolish. In frustration last week, Power told me that it sometimes seems like we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Let's hope that for once, Lansing proves him wrong.

Essay: A Bridge Too Far - 07.23.09

Debate is continuing over whether there should be a new bridge over the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor Ontario. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry says don't look now, but the Canadian government has made up its mind.

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Sometimes it may seem as the battle of the budget is the only thing that's been going on in Lansing. That's not quite true. For months, there's been a debate over whether to support a plan to clone the Ambassador Bridge by allowing its owner, businessman Matty Moroun, to build a second span next to it.

The alternative is to build a second bridge about a mile further south, a bridge that would be internationally owned by a consortium that would include both nations and a group of private investors. The group behind this proposal is called the Detroit River International Crossing Project, or DRIC.

Ambassdor Bridge supporters, such as State Senator Alan Cropsey of DeWitt, say that government can't afford to tie up money in a new bridge, especially when a private investor is willing to pay for it. In a nation founded on private enterprise, there is no excuse for socialism when the market can handle the need.

Supporters of the DRIC bridge include much of the state's top political leadership, from Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr, to Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, a conservative Republican best known for his pro-growth, business-friendly policies.

Generally, these folks agree that private enterprise is a great thing. But they say this is different. This is an international border crossing, which needs to be subject to the rules, regulations and safeguards of both nations -- especially in an age of terrorism.

They say there are already huge security concerns about the Ambassador Bridge now. Putting a second bridge next to it would merely give any terrorist a more tempting target.

As far as funding goes, economists say either group would likely ask for the authority to issue bonds to pay for the bridge.

But while these arguments have been going on, both sides seem to have missed something big: The competition is really over. Supporters of the DRIC bridge have won. Eventually, it will be built, hopefully sooner rather than later. What the legislature ought to do now is help make the new bridge a reality that will boost the economies of both nations.

Why am I saying this is over? Because although we have somehow not noticed, the government of Canada has made up its mind. Canada wants the internationally owned bridge. Michael Wilson, Ottawa's ambassador to Washington, says so.

He recently said his government was convinced this was the right way to go and was delighted by the choice of the site. Then, this week, the Canadian government bought 94 acres of land in Windsor for the bridge. We mostly ignored this.

By the way, Ottawa has denied Mr. Moroun any permits to build a new bridge. Perhaps he and his supporters think Canada will change its mind. I have news for them.

I've covered politics in Canada. If there is one thing Ottawa is sensitive about, it is being pushed around by Washington.

They aren't changing their mind on this. Now, I guess Mr. Moroun could build a bridge that stuck half way out over the river.

That might make an interesting sight. But I am afraid it would be an awfully expensive piece of modern art.