Weekend nonsense update

This is insane. She's still lying about the Bridge to Nowhere:

At her rally yesterday in Carson City, Nevada, Sarah Palin again trotted out the lie that she opposed the Bridge To Nowhere, despite having been forced to admit during her interview with Charlie Gibson that she had supported it. Palin again used the standard line, "I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves."

Not only is she repeating the same blatant lie, but it's the same exact line. Over and over again. Holy Christ, Sarah, at least put a little twist on it or something...like this:

Extra bonus McCain Lie (tm) unearthed! Down in the aforelinked article McCain spokesman Peter Feldman says this: "The fact is that once Governor Palin was elected and had an opportunity to look closely at the project, she killed it. She fought for Congress to kill the provision, but they sent the funds anyway. Palin fired the kill shot by not using a dime of that money on the bridge. ( emphasis added )"

Feldman appears now to be saying that Palin either campaigned against the original earmark or campaigned for it to be killed after it was approved. To the best of my knowledge I have never even heard them claim this before. But keep the timeline in mind. The Bridge to Nowhere earmark was killed in 2005, a year before Palin even ran for governor. And when she ran in 2006 she ran as a strong pro-Bridge candidate . So when exactly is Feldman claiming she campaigned against the bridge earmark? When she was Mayor of Wasilla?

So not only did she say "thanks, but no thanks," but she ALSO "fought for Congress to kill the provision". Before she even ran for Governor! Wow, is there no limit to Palin's earmark-killing superpowers?

They're lying about the crowd sizes too:

Despite a Bloomberg report accusing the McCain campaign of lying about crowd sizes, they're apparently still at it . Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki boasted at yesterday's Carson City event with Sarah Palin that 10,000 people were in the crowd -- in an arena that only holds 3,500 people.

This is starting to get quite surreal. It's even too much for Karl Rove. Yes, that Karl Rove:

WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?

ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

Now I've seen everything. You know, when even Karl fucking Rove is saying your campaign is too sleazy, you just might be running the sleaziest, most dishonest presidential campaign ever.

And I'll end with something just a little more substantive:

Nobody likes McCain's tax plan.

Not even his own economic advisors.

PS: Democrats, don't panic. McCain got a convention bounce. That's it. It was completely predictable. This happens every election; both candidates get convention bounces, and almost every time, it recedes right back to where it was in the first place. Before the Democratic convention, Obama was statistically tied with McCain. After, he reached a lead of 6-8 points. McCain's post-convention lead was anywhere between 3 and 5 pionts. And if the newest tracking polls are any indication, his bounce has indeed receded. A week ago, he was five points up in the Gallup tracker. Now it's only two points, statistically back to a tie. And if things go as I expect they will, by the end of next week, Obama will be back to a small lead, just as he was before both conventions.

I admit that the past week and a half has been depressing, but there's no need to panic just yet. In fact, panic is the absolute worst thing for Democrats to do, because it gives an impression of a campaign on its heels.

Yes, take Palin seriously. We may know her nomination is a farce, but that doesn't mean every swing voter does.

And yes, Obama's recent ads have been pretty bad. He's got to drop the weak "more of the same" stuff, and forget about lobbyists, and definitely forget about McCain not knowing how to use a computer. He's got to hit McCain where it hurts. Dig up opposing clips of McCain supporting something and then turning against it, or vice versa. Play the clip where he proudly says he votes with Bush 90% of the time. And don't play it once, play it over and over again. And call out McCain on his repeated lies. Don't tip-toe around the subject, call him a liar, and make sure everyone knows that he's lying. Show people that Democrats won't stand for this.

Eventually, his campaign will collapse under the weight of all the sleaze. Eventually, voters will do a gutcheck on Sarah Palin and realize that not only is she supremely unqualified, she's also George W. Bush with lipstick.

Take it from me, the good guys are going to win this one.