Seth Colter Walls, Huffington Post
Speaking in Lebanon, Ohio today, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin repeated her frequently debunked lie on the "bridge to nowhere," which originated in her speech to the Republican National Convention last Wednesday. As the crowd cheered, Palin (falsely) recounted how she told the U.S. Congress "thanks but no thanks" for the project that has become a symbol of wasteful government spending.
Virtually every media outlet -- from the Wall Street Journal to FactCheck.org -- that has investigated the claim has found it to be a wholesale fiction. Though Palin did abandon her onetime support for the bridge after winning Alaska's governorship, she did so only after federal dollars dried up. Moreover, she kept the federal funds already given to Alaska.
Yet Palin still continues to use the line in each and every stump speech. In response, the Obama campaign is turning to humor. "On the same day that dozens of news organizations have exposed Governor Palin's phony Bridge to Nowhere claim as a 'naked lie,' she and John McCain continue to repeat the claim in their stump speeches. Maybe tomorrow she'll tell us she sold it on eBay," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.
The eBay dig is a reference to another tall tale from the McCain-Palin campaign -- the idea that the governor sold a luxury jet online. Palin herself has scrupulously avoided saying outright that she sold the plane on eBay -- merely saying that she "put" it on eBay. But McCain himself strayed into the realm of untruth last week by claiming that Palin not only "sold it" through the online auction site, but also did so "at a profit." In fact, the eBay auction was a failure, and Alaska had to sell the plane offline, at a $600,000 loss.
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