I'm happy that Bob Plain finally clarified his position regarding the EDC a bit, although he still avoids all of the hard questions that an intellectually responsible blogger would answer. I asked him to do so numerous times on RIFuture and he refused to even acknowledge any of my questions. As far as I can tell, Plain thinks the EDC is a wonderful concept in abstract but has no principled position for or against any specific investment beyond whether it occurred under a Republican administration. For example, he and his ilk are always calling for additional investment in manufacturing and unionized companies, but RIFuture then demonzied the Capco Steel loan after it failed (always after the loans fail, never before) as another "Carcieri" debacle with no substantive discussion. He did publicly offer to have contributors Brian Hull and John Speck write follow-up articles on the 38 Studios loan, since both of them wrote supportive pieces on loan before its failure - no surprise that never happened. Maybe somebody who hasn't been banned from Plain's blog for posting "unpopular" content can try to get a more principled explanation at some point.

" but has no principled position for or against any specific investment beyond whether it occurred under a Republican administration"

In this program, Bob places the blame for 38 Studios entirely on Governor Carcieri. In fact, the 38 Studios loan guarantee could never have happened, no matter how much Gov Carcieri wanted it or pushed for it, if the General Assembly had not approved of it and voted it into law.