...would he be so stupid as to lie about this?

If the story grows some legs. But the narrative right now is that McCain was trashed by poor journalism or liberal intentions. Either way, he is seen as the victim right now.

McCain is too old too keep his lies straight.

This isn't necessarily a problem for McCain. Republicans expect their candidates to lie and get caught, and everybody else has gotten used to it.

The right-wing press loves him, and that's good enough for most people.

Cheney: "Suckers!"

I think the position of press secretary should go to Col. Steven Boylan. He seems perfectly suited to presenting arguments like those in this post. The truth never seems to count for much when there is a good argument to be joined.

Why...

...would he be so stupid as to lie about this?

You'd be amazed (or maybe you wouldn't be) at how POORLY people lie all the time in litigation and in ways when they can easily be proven to be lying. It's not surprising at all that people lie alot - when the stakes are high, people get desperate, convince thsemlves that the ends justify the means, etc. etc.

But, as you point out, the odd apsect is how bad the lies are, how easily uncovered and disproven they are. It could easily be that he forget that he testified to this, because it wasn't really a central issue in that litigation. It could be that they are so freaked out by the potentially damaging nature of this story that they panicked and didn't think things through clearly. It could be any number of things explaining why he would tell such an easy-to-catch lie. But it's not uncommon in these situations.

"Its not the crime. Its the cover-up."

Or is it "There's no fool like an old fool."

Either seem appropriate right now.

Was how ready several major news outlets were to declare the story dead as of this morning. US News & WR and our friends at Time seemed to be the most blatant offenders, but with the excepion of newsweek, everybody seemed quite ready to help sweep this under the rug.

Some particularly brazen examples are here:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/mccain_moves_on.html

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/a_daughter_weighs_in.html

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080222.htm

And not to be paranoid, but when I entered "McCain's First Wife" into google news the top links concerned Michelle Obama.

McCain said:

"I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act, but I will not write a letter, I cannot write a letter asking them to approve or deny, because then that would be an interference in their activities. I think everybody is entitled to a decision. But I can't ask for a favorable disposition for you."

And then he did that which was completely above board.

The combination of having been long surrounded by yes-men and having lived in the coddled bubble, and being 10+ years old in dog years is going to prove to be too much for John McCain to keep his stories straight. Like Walter, I believe the mental deterioration brought on by age has set in for John McCain, and that is going to play a large part in McCain's utter failure as a candidate for president.

It's hard to say if he is out right lying on this current issue. But it's not hard to say that he is flat incorrect. So whether or not this one story "has legs" it will be a precursor to how other stories will develop. I don't know if McCain is going to survive this campaign without losing every shred of credibility that he so dishonestly and undeservedly held up until this time.

Which makes his lying about it even MORE inexplicable not less.

Try again.

Why would NYT endorse McCain while sitting on a story they obviously found detrimental to his campaign? I just can't square this in my mind.

And then he did that which was completely above board.

Sseeing how basically McCain==Bush part three, I can see why you take this attitude: it's OK to lie as long as tiberius thinks what you lied about is not a big deal.

I got it, right? That's why Bush's lies are OK to you, right, because you think he lied about the right things?

I agree that the Paxson angle is the one part of this that matters (at this point). The stuff about the possible personal relationship was just way, way too poorly sourced to warrant the breathless treatment in that article.

But I don't know how big a deal the clear deceit you point out in this post really is.

The campaign got overeager yesterday, and issued a comically overbroad denial. Is it any worse than that? Or are you thinking that the false denial indicates an eagerness to cover up things that are actually bad?

Is busted on this one. The body language expert at FOX News says the responses were shady, for Christ's sake.

That is nail-in-the-coffin testimony demonstrating the deliberately false nature of McCain's denials this week.

"Deliberately false" sounds a lot better for McCain then

That is nail-in-the-coffin testimony demonstrating the outright lies McCain told in his denials this week.

I understand you are a journalist Glen and you need fact based objectivity. But, when you have hard cold facts that McCain lied, you need to call him a liar.

And when anyone lies from either party call them liars. Not misleading, misconstrued, or any other nonsense somehow justifying outright lies as potentially having some truth. If we want to clean up political discourse we need to call a lie a lie and a liar a liar. And we need to do it every time we hear it.

That's why we still have this nod and wink reaction when the press lets the lies come out.

Why can't journalists just start calling lies lies, and liars liars?

If you update this article, please call McCain a liar.