Lies, damned lies, and Sarah Palin ("a fraud of truly comical dimensions")

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Josh Marshall:

We've now had a week of blaring headlines and one-liners about Sarah Palin as the mavericky, pork-busting reformer from Alaska. But we seem to be witnessing the first stirrings of a backlash and a dawning realization that the "Sarah Palin" we've heard so much about over the last few days is a fraud of truly comical dimensions.

The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it. (Do send more examples when you find them.)

On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.

Think about that. On the stump, not a single word that comes out of her mouth -- or not a single word that the McCain folks put in her mouth -- is anything but a lie. I know that sounds like hyperbole. But just go down the list. None of them bear out.

That's right, it's all a big lie. And I think Josh has come up with the best description of Palin yet: "a fraud of truly comical dimensions."

Let's make sure to credit the media, the much-maligned (and deservedly so) media, for this. Even major MSM outlets like the AP -- hell, even major right-wing MSM outlets like the WSJ -- are on the case, exposing Palin's (and McCain's) lies.

And the lies keep coming. As Think Progress is reporting, Palin repeated her "Bridge to Nowhere" lie at an event today in Ohio.

She repeated not just the lie but her now-standard "thanks, but no thanks" line. She's so much of a fraud that all she does is repeat the same media-friendly one-liners over and over and over. People say she's so charismatic, so likeable, but behind that smile with a sarcastic sneer there's just a robotic political core to go along with the extremist right-wing ideology. As a political figure, there's nothing genuine or authentic about her.

Unless we call her a genuine and authentic liar.