RECENT NATIONAL MEDIA reports that Seattle is on the verge of tipping over into Puget Sound could be a sneaky, Lesser Seattle-style campaign to keep the outsiders out.

Take Fred Moody’s op-ed piece in The New York Times lamenting our aging transportation infrastructure and the unwillingness of taxpayers to fund a fix, even as they gripe about crumbling roads. While Moody, a former Seattle Weekly writer and editor, correctly points out that Washington voters rate high on the crybaby index, nonresident readers would assume that Seattle traffic moves only to accommodate motorists dodging chunks of falling concrete. His claim that the old Mercer Island floating bridge “had to sink some years ago before anybody cared enough to repair it” belies the fact that the span foundered while it was being repaired.

Worse yet, Mr. and Mrs. America, Moody neglected to mention that it rains 11 months a year here. Honest.

James Bush jbush@seattleweekly.com