Lie, Lie, Lie Some More

For her public appearances thus far, Sarah Palin uses prepared remarks, off a TelePrompTer, that are virtually identical to her convention speech. I mean to the letter identical. It's like a traveling summer stock production, where the audience can recite the familiar lines by heart after a while. This is popular, despite the fact that some of those lines are documented lies.

"She said she "championed reform of earmark spending by Congress, and I told the Congress thanks but no thanks on that 'Bridge to Nowhere'", she said, ommiting (sic) mention that she'd campaigned for governor supporting the bridge."

It's a lie, everyone knows it's a lie, and yet she repeats it, word for word. If anything shows that Palin is a typical Republican politician, this is it. The zombie lie that never dies is a staple of Republican campaign strategy. We've seen multiple new ones sprout up these past months: that Palin recited the speech from memory after the TelePrompTer broke (then why's she still using one?), that the Democrats threw away their American flags from their convention, that Obama plans to raise everyone's taxes, that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba, etc.

I agree with Atrios that Republicans actually relish repeating debunked lies. When truth is devalued, those on the wrong side of it react with glee when their leaders "throw it in the face" of those Eastern elites with their facts and such. Their base appreciates lying to the public.

It may be an insult to our intelligence but that doesn't mean it won't succeed. This really is uncharted territory - lie, have the lie exposed, and continue to lie. And I have no faith in the media dissemination that the lie will hurt the Republican ticket in any meaningful way.