How Can You Tell McCain is Lying?

His lips are moving. Maybe there is going to be some blowback for the McCain campaigns repeated lies. I notice when I write these things, even I feel a reluctance to use the word “lie.” I think there is something buried in our heads that makes us struggle against the notion that other people are intentionally telling us falsehoods. So, in the media reports, you’ll see things like “stretching the truth” and “misrepresented,” but it amounts to the same thing. Facts, as Mr. Colbert noted, have a liberal bias. So, McCain is going to just make stuff up. The “Straight Talk” Express has derailed and been replaced with the Double Talk Express.

Among the whoppers noted by the New York Times:
#McCain falsely claiming that Obama called Palin a pig.
#McCain lying about Obama’s efforts to protect kids from would-be molesters.
#McCain lying about the impact of Obama’s tax plan on the middle class compared to his own.
#McCain lying about “Fact Check’s” fact checking. (Holy recursion, Batman!)
#McCain lying about Palin being against federal earmark spending when she was for it.
#McCain lying about Palin’s opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere when she was a supporter.

The article misses McCain’s lying about Palin selling an Alaskan airplane on eBay for a profit. In fact she advertised the airplane on eBay couldn’t sell it, incurred a hefty fee, and then sold the plane for a loss. But, as the sainted Ronald Reagan once said, “facts are stupid things.”

I’m just waiting for the McCain campaign to explain that McCain can’t tell the truth because he was a P.O.W. for 5 years.

Update TimF at Balloon Juice likens the McCain strategy to Shooting the Moon in Hearts. The McCain campaign is just going to emulate Tommy Flanagan and to hell with anyone who calls bullshit:

This approach is basically the same as shooting the moon in Hearts, a strategy where a player with a terrible hand goes for a perverse win state that requires taking in every negative card in the game. Shooting the moon only works if you take every demerit card take in all but one and you end up with a score so bad that you might as well quit and go home. It’s an all or nothing move.