And there isn't any way this is an "honest mistake", because the figures for Alaska earmarks have been floating around as a major campaign issue, the last week. He's just a liar:
MCCAIN: Well, first of all, earmark spending, which she vetoed a half a billion dollars worth in the state of Alaska.
WALTERS: She also took some earmarks there.
BEHAR: A lot.
MCCAIN: No, not as governor she didn’t, she vetoed...
WALTERS: As Mayor.
MCCAIN: Well, look, the fact is that she was a reform governor.
Um, no. Not even close. Alaska under Palin still sought more earmark dollars per-capita than any other state. Alaska requested $750 million dollars in earmarks during the time she was governor. Denying that she took earmarks is about as credible as McCain announcing he won the Tour de France (maybe he's saving that one for next week.) And yes, Walters was correct to note that as Mayor of Wasilla, Palin was also an avid earmark seeker.
Not even Bush was this flagrant, in his campaigns. The Bush campaigns would waffle, parse, omit, and yes, lie, but there was nothing like this -- a weeklong campaign in which absurd, transparently false, multiply-debunked lies are horked up again and again, with absolutely no compunction or remorse.
I'd say its a pathology, but it's rather clearly just an intentional campaign strategy of the worst and most cynical sort. John McCain doesn't care if he lies through his teeth -- he knows that many in the audience of "The View" won't know the truth, and is hoping the lie will connect with those people. The rest of us -- and the media, which is finally and increasingly, I must admit, calling him out on this stuff -- can go suck eggs.
What would it be like to have this guy as president -- someone who lies this easily, and about everything, and about plain facts that aren't just easily looked up but that have been in the news frequently, such that there's just no way to credibly believe the campaign isn't fully aware of the truth? What exactly does McCain stand for, as a conservative, or as a "maverick", or whatever else he wants to call himself, if everything he says he stands for is a campaign fabrication?
I have to believe that not even our media -- and not even, dare I say, "real" conservatives -- can put up with a candidate who comes up with outlandish, baldfaced lies during nearly every campaign appearance. Who will be the first conservative to call McCain out as being a cheap and crooked candidate?
http://www.dailykos.com/