McCain-Palin caught making up crowd-size estimates for campaign rallies.

From The Boston Globe …

Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America.

Following her selection last month as John McCain’s running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a “military outpost” inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin’s foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.

But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as “K-Crossing,” on July 25, 2007.

The Boston Globe does some digging on Palin, reveals her to be a big-spending tax-hiker who hasn’t actually travelled to the countries that the McCain campaign has said she has. That and other political news in today’s Election Central Saturday Roundup.

Sarah Palin struggles to explain why she’s been saying she said “Thanks. But No Thanks” even though she didn’t …

Note particularly how she explains wearing this “Nowhere, Alaska” t-shirt when running in support of the Bridge in 2006 …

Todd Gitlin has more on Charlie Gibson’s visit with Sarah Palin in Alaska.

From the NYT …

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.

You and I may have seen Sarah Palin caught off guard in the Charlie Gibson interview because she’d never heard of the “Bush Doctrine”. But now we learn her seeming ignorance was actually a penetrating insight into the ambiguities of the “Bush Doctrine.”

I haven’t yet seen the entire interview or interviews. So I’ll reserve final judgment. But as you know I was very skeptical and fairly hard on Charlie Gibson in advance of his interview with Sarah Palin. I still think this was a terrible way to interview a person trying to be one heart beat away from the presidency (more like a celebrity interview than a live-to-tape interview on a Sunday morning show). But Gibson was more probing and his questions more substantive than I expected.

Sarah Palin ducks and weaves as she’s caught out on the Bridge to Nowhere lie …

TPM Reader MM adds some thoughts …

She introduced herself to the world stage by delivering a speech that she knew was a lie.

What kind of a person does that?

What does that say about her moral character?

How can the American people believe anything she says from here?

That was what she presented as evidence A#1 of her stature as a reformer!

I mean…

WTF?

I mean, she’s as bad as McCain …