James Fallows asks:
1) At any point will the right-wing press join the effort to hold Palin accountable for her false claim, as all of the press held Clinton responsible?
Unless I count as part of the right-wing press, which is something of a stretch, no.
2) If Palin keeps making the claim, will press critics redouble their debunking, as they did with Clinton, or taper off for fear of seeming biased or boring?
They will probably give up on it out of fear that they are creating the impression that the media are engaged in a purely anti-Palin campaign, which might very well be contributing to the tremendous outpouring of sympathy and enthusiasm for her.
3) At any point will Palin herself — or, far more significant, McCain — acknowledge that there are such things as fact and fantasy, and stop making a demonstrably false claim?
Why do that when lying works so well for them?
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I’m not sure it’s lying to them; there is simply a significant portion of the United States population that has adopted the confluence of America, Jesus, and some weird new hybrid of Manifest Destiny that seems to involve Israel. It’s a religious movement, or, if I can descend into elitism for a moment, a meta-religious movement. Once you look at national governance as some kind of religious protocol, the definition of “truth” changes. So you have a group of people that basically has no interest in empirical observations–that’s not what they use to evaluate articles of faith, and empiricism often leads to blasphemy, anyhow.
Really, I don’t think these people think they are lying. They’re preaching. They’re preaching The Truth.
Incidentally, you also have another group of people that has figured out how to make a few bucks off of this. Ladies and gentleman, your new Republican Party.