<<Naaaa, I'm simply referring to your current hypocritical standard that anyone you disagree with, is concluded to have said something patently false, regardless the follow-up clarity that demonstrates it to be such . . . >>
Well, if you accept the principle that sometimes people mis-speak and then wish to clarify their misstatement and sometimes people say something foolish and then try to lie their way out of it by inventing (after the fact) a different meaning for their words, then you would have to admit that one has to try to distinguish between the two situations. In McCain's case, for example, you have to choose: Did he really mean to say "the American worker is strong?" Or is he lying in order to avoid the consequences of claiming that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?
For good reason, I choose to believe that McCain is lying in his explanation of what he said. It's clear to me that he made a very foolish statement and then tried to give it a whole different meaning when he realized just how dumb the original statement was. But hey, that is just my opinion (and probably the opinion of 90% of the people who heard him speak those words.)
Similarly I explained my words, "Excuse me for expressing my opinion." I believe most people would recognize the sarcasm in those words, even without my explanation of it. Most of those who didn't catch the sarcasm the first time around would readily accept my word that the words were meant to be sarcastic. Why? Because it's not much of a stretch. Because "Excuse me" is not only commonly recognized as sarcasm, it's probably used today, at least in written communications, more in its sarcastic sense than in its simple and straightforward sense.
You on the other hand, claim not to recognize the obvious sarcasm in the phrase and not to believe the explanation offered that the words were meant in sarcasm. That's OK. I think you are lying, i.e., you know very well that the words were intended sarcastically, but for your own reasons, choose to deny that they were. Well, there is no point in debating a liar who persists in his lie, so I have no further interest in debating this point with you. There is of course another possibility, which is that you are just too fucking stupid to see the sarcasm, but I do not believe you are that stupid. I don't believe anyone in this group is that stupid, as a matter of fact. So I'll stick with my original conclusion.
