could have done the same research you did Joan. So, if he didn't, then he's not much of a talking head, and if he did, then he's as much a liar as Palin. Why in the world people believe in this hypocrite from Alaska I just can't fathom. I think your request for a name that refers to a clueless hypocrite--would hypoditz do?

“Is Sarah Palin going to keep telling these lies on her self-pity tour?”

What’s past is prologue. Immediately after the conclusion of the “troopergate” investigation that concluded she had committed ethical violations, and everyone KNEW that was the finding, she blatantly lied about the finding as if no one would even notice:

http://wizbangblue.com/2008/10/17/sarah-palin-lies-to-reporters-about-troopergate-findings.php

In the above video, she at least stutters a little bit while telling her whopper. She’s clearly getting better at it. Why would she do anything different?

Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic has compiled a list of Palin's lies. It's a nice resource, if you care about truth at all, that is.

http://tinyurl.com/sarah-s-lies

It was about $296k total Personnel Board costs; $187k was the cost of the Troopergate, which was a duplicate of what the legislature was already investigating and was a complaint Sarah filed on herself. Her legal bills are in excess of $500k, but that will probably shrink; she can pay those through her fundraising efforts and Tom VF no doubt will pare his bill for her. After all, I'm sure he thinks it's good PR for Clapp Peterson, though it really has not been.

So, 2/3rds were the direct result of her decision to incur the costs for the state. Very few people believe none of the complaints stuck because she wasn't guilty of them. Remember, this is a state where a legislator can be on videotape on his knees picking up twenties off the floor where the CEO of VECO dropped them for him, and they can't keep either of them in prison. How are they going to get Sarah for ever so slightly more subtle corruption? Besides, Alaska law actually allows some of her more obvious and egregious violations of the public trust, like collecting tens of thousands in per diem for living in your own house instead of within 700 miles of the state capital.

This is still a question worth asking?

Joan, I'm highly sympathetic to your frustration with the non-reality-based community. I've been dealing with a member all this week, and I know, it makes your head hurt.

But surely we've seen enough to know that she doesn't need a *reason* to lie. The first poster here put it best: it's like asking why dogs bark. It's simply an inextricable part of who she is.

Munchausen by Cable. The need to constantly provoke the press so that people feel sorry for you.

Hey it's good to dive in here early when everybody makes sense.The Wasilla-hillbillies should be a footnote by now but let the radcom creativity begin.I am so embarrassed as an American heading for Europe next month. Ourp politics look like Maury Povich episodes. Thank you Joan,you're a scapper and we need to keep up the fight or they'll be baaack.

Discovery Channel runs the Alaska Experiment as part of a reality TV series. So far they have used Americans from all parts of the country. How about MS PALIN, MS MOOSE SHOOTER, showing us what she is made of, how about putting her on the show, dropping her in the Alaskan wilderness with ordinary Americans. Now that she really has nothing to do, why not spend a few weeks on a SURVIVAL COURSE IN YOUR OWN STATE, show us what you are made of, unless you are just a phony political pretender, maybe you can't pull your weight with the working people of this country, who have never seen your state. How about putting your money where your mouth is???

Lies were proven to be successful for the most part for 8 years. They work completely well for half the population as we know. She used the same playbook before.

Why does she continue to lie about almost everything? It's the one lesson that she learned very well, the same lesson the people in the Bush Administration learned. Tell the lie, repeat the lie constantly, have someone like Rush repeat the lie, refuse to change your story when called on the lie and before long many people (i.e conservative talk radio listeners) will believe it. Why wouldn't she continue with such successful past practices?

The $286,000 number you quote, as clearly stated in the Anchorage Daily News article you linked, were only the direct costs of hiring outside counsel for the ethics violations. They do not include numerous other costs supposedly involved. Palin’s office provided a detailed breakdown of where the $2 million claim came from, as reported by the AP:

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin’s office has released a nearly $2 million cost breakdown detailing what the resigning Alaska governor says the state has paid tackling ethics complaints against her. The spreadsheet compiled by the governor’s office totals more than $1.9 million reportedly spent by various state agencies to handle the complaints as well as public records requests.

Palin, who steps down July 26, has racked up more than $500,000 in personal legal debts on top of that. According to the cost breakdown, expenditures by the state Department of Law added up to more than $850,000. The governor’s office says its expenditures totaled more than $425,000 in nearly 6,000 hours of staff hours. Palin’s staff released the numbers to back up her contention the onslaught of “frivolous” ethics complaints have cost the state millions of dollars and thousands staff hours."

If you have evidence to attack that accounting, I'd like to see it. Otherwise, your whole article seems based on a false premise.

Great job of investigative reporting by Joan Walsh on Sarah Palin's self-serving pathological dishonesty about those ethics complaints filed against her by her fellow Alaskans and Republican colleagues. You are the "liberal news media" Palin feels is out to get her, but she is her own worst enemy. The trouble is so many Americans are pathetically stupid and dishonest that she can do no wrong in their eyes. She's George W. Bush in drag to them.