As a Matter of Fact

Salon's Farhad Manjoo does the math:

"Since July, John McCain and his campaign have made 11 political claims that are barely true, eight that are categorically false, and three that you'd have to call pants-on-fire lies -- a total of 22 clearly deceptive statements (many of them made repeatedly in ads and stump speeches). Barack Obama and Joe Biden, meanwhile, have put out eight bare truths, four untruths, and zero pants-on-fire lies -- 12 false claims. These stats and categories come from PolitiFact, but the story looks pretty much the same if you count up fabrications documented by FactCheck.org or the Washington Post's Fact Checker, the other truth-squad operations working the race: During the past two and a half months, McCain has lied more often and more outrageously than Obama."

Andrew Sullivan also piles on:

"Another absurd ad repeating the absolute lie that Sarah Palin stopped the 'Bridge To Nowhere.' As everyone knows by now, she lobbied for the bridge to nowhere, and the federal Congress killed it, and then she kept the money for other projects anyway. But McCain is still airing ads telling the same lie.

"He has also still not retracted his lie on The View when he point blank said that Palin has refused all earmarks as governor. I cannot remember a candidate for president telling such a bald-faced lie on national television and not retracting. And I cannot remember a press corps so pathetic they cannot badger his campaign for a retraction after two days."

But is it a sign of the media's weakness that McCain-Palin haven't adjusted claims that are reported to be exaggerated or false? Or a sign of the campaign's determination to ignore what it would call the elite media?

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin has a very different take on the media's factual accusations against McCain:

"They are preparing their excuses for defeat. No matter how foolhardy the Democratic primary voters in selecting a high risk candidate, no matter how bizarre the policy choices of that candidate, no matter how outlandishly wrong the conventional press wisdom and no matter how inept the campaign operation there is a cure-all excuse: McCain lied, our hopes died.

"I am not saying Barack Obama is going to lose; I am saying the Obama Gang of Three (i.e. the mind-melded bloggers/MSM/campaign operation) now thinks that is a distinct possibility. So how to explain how they all messed up? When in doubt, revive the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove/Gore v. Bush/Swiftboat rationale which is 'It is never our fault.' "

Could the Palin saga, now 2 1/2 weeks and going strong, peter out soon? Marketwatch's Jon Friedman says it's a matter of time:

"The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her. They'll need to move to shine a light on a fresh issue or individual.

"This is how the world works in the age of 24/7 news cycles. Whether the subject is Britney Spears, Michael Jordan or Sarah Palin, we inevitably raise stars to mythic levels, out of all reasonable proportions. Then we knock them down. (Look out, Michael Phelps. Your time is coming, too.)