The McCain Doctrine?

So, is there a McCain Doctrine of using overwhelming lies to win a campaign?

The lies are coming so fast and furious now that there's just no way to keep up with them. I used to try to at least mention every patent lie in a post, but at this point that would be a full-time job.

The WaPo still can't bring itself to call a patent lie a lie. They write, of Palin's Bridge to Nowhere lie that "...critics, the news media and nonpartisan fact checkers have called it a fabrication," and that the story has been "publicly discredited." Though the WaPo itself never directly reports that it is a lie. They also write that "Palin and John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, have been more aggressive in recent days in repeating what their opponents say are outright lies." (Do I need to add: my emphasis?) But, again, no actual reporting that McCain, Palin and the GOP are lying, only that that's what, ya know, some people say...

Now, of course, the media won't report even this much without adding the "she said" part, and the WaPo dutifully does its part, reporting on crackpot intertube rumors about Palin's personal life as the bit that shows that Obama is every bit as bad as McCain.

So, to recap: McCain and Palin repeatedly tell patent lies on the campaign trail, but, on the other hand, some nut on dKos who can't even be identified, and who was immediately shouted down by other Kossacks, said something nutty about Palin last week in his Kos diary.

So you can see, there's rough parity of mendacity here.

Lord help us.

Though, finally, let me say that the story does bust Obama for his "hundred years" lie about McCain, something I grumbled mightily about around here, and something other Obamaphiles have been inclined to defend. But it was clearly a distortion of what McCain said and meant. Obama should never have said it, nor run that ad. He was wrong, and now, though McCain is much worse, the "hundred years" distortion provides evidence for that defense beloved of the Republicans: all politicians are liars, so get off our backs about it.