From the WSJ …

Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government “thanks but no thanks” to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state.

The McCain campaign released a television advertisement1 Monday morning titled “Original Mavericks.” The narrator of the 30-second spot boasts about the pair: “He fights pork-barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.”

Gov. Palin, who John McCain named as his running mate less than two weeks ago, quickly adopted a stump line bragging about her opposition to the pork-barrel project Sen. McCain routinely decries.
[Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee’s Summit, Mo.]
Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee’s Summit, Mo.

But Gov. Palin’s claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.

“We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge,” Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, “and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.” The bridge would have linked Ketchikan to the airport on Gravina Island. Travelers from Ketchikan (pop. 7,500) now rely on ferries.

A year ago, the governor issued a press release2 that the money for the project was being “redirected.”

“Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer,” she said. “Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.”

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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.

What’s the metaphor? What movie character is she like? Some iconic phony, yes. It’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t place it. Help me with this.

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With a new TV ad and a speech scheduled in Ohio, Obama’s theme of the day is public education. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) is still out there today touting her supposed opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere.

Meanwhile, indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) comes to Palin’s defense. Gotta love that.

Obama reminds us that back when all the cool kids were for it, John McCain wanted to abolish the Department of Education.

Yesterday we posted this video (see below) chronicling Gov. Palin’s big lie about stopping the Bridge to Nowhere. Quick viral videos, though, move very quickly. So we’ve now prepared this annotated guide to each statement and answer cited in the video — including transcripts, at length selections of video and more. So if you weren’t satisfied with the sound bite lie you can now have the at length version too.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin continues to repeat the claim that she told Congress “Thanks, but no thanks,” for the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere” project. Apparently Sarah didn’t get the memo: her claim has been thoroughly debunked by the media …

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

We’ll be talking more about this. But as I said yesterday, a lot of press outlets are now willing to say flat out that Sarah Palin is lying through her teeth on her Bridge to Nowhere fib. But quite a few are still holding on with the Palin says she did, Obama campaign says she didn’t hooey. So if you see really egregious examples, particularly on tv, drop us a line and let us know. It’s amazing how many news organizations see it as part of their responsibility to make themselves complicit in these lies. So we’d like to put together some examples.