Metro trains in the US capital, originally uploaded by El_Enigma.

Leave it to a liberal to turn Metro’s tragic accident into a political vendetta. Nine people died and 80 were injured in Monday’s collision on the Red Line, a few stops north of where I work. When I expressed my condolences to those involved last night on Facebook, the last thing I expected was for someone to point a finger at me as the culprit.

Meet David Elliot. He’s the communications director for a left-wing organization called USAction. He was apparently so bothered by a 123-character tweet last month that it prompted this note to me:

Rob, last month were you not calling for cuts in Metro funding? I remember you specifically saying it would be a good deal to eliminate escallators (sic). I remember how incredibly cruel I thought that was. I wonder how you feel about funding now?

To be precise, what I said was this:

Metro should stop fixing escalators. Make people walk. It would save $$ and encourage weight loss. http://twitpic.com/58viu

David, the brilliant communicator that he is, found a way to connect broken escalators to yesterday’s accident.

Now, granted, I’m not shy about expressing my frustrations about Metro. Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that. However, I don’t recall ever advocating for an outright funding cut.

Nonetheless, David saw fit to exploit the tragedy and attack me personally. Even when I called him out for it — explaining that I’d rather see Metro spend money on employee training than escalators — he chose not to apologize but launch a new attack:

First off, training costs money, and you’re on record as opposing more money for mass transit — in fact, you wanted to cut money for escalators! Second, as the world now knows, the NTSB recommended as early as 2006 that one of the trains in question be phased out of operation. But we couldn’t do that, in part because of a lack of funding. You can accuse me, if you wish, of trying to “exploit” this awful event. I prefer to think of my position as advocating that government play a role in keeping us safe — and that takes tax dollars. I think today that a majority of Americans, and certainly a majority of Washington, D.C. residents and Red Line commuters would agree with me.

How ironic that David wants government to “play a role in keeping us safe” when it comes to Metro, but he advocates cutting our defense budget to make us more vulnerable to foreign enemies. But that’s another story.

Lastly, I want to emphasize again my condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the accident and the injured individuals who are recovering. Yesterday’s accident demonstrated a clear failure of Metro management to upgrade its fleet and take proper safety precautions, even though federal officials warned about the risks of inaction. It’s not my job as a customer to decide how Metro spends its money, but I reserve the right to share my opinion when I see fit.

As someone who has spent more than $15,000 (a conservative estimate) on Metro in the eight years I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., plus whatever local taxes my government pays into the system, I’m hardly the person to blame. Liberals like David Elliot might think it’s “cruel” to criticize Metro, but what’s really cruel is launching an ad hominem attack without the facts to back it up.