Sarah Palin is testing the Mainstream Corporate Media. She is daring the media to call her on her lies. ThinkProgress notes that she had dropped the mention of the the Bridge to Nowhere after having to admit to Charlie Gibson that she had supported the bridge and had campaigned in favor of it. Then, Sarah dusted off the untruth and began spouting it again (emphasis mine):

As ThinkProgress and others noted, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) seemed to acknowledge last week to ABC’s Charles Gibson that she lied in claiming repeatedly that she said, “Thanks, but no thanks” to Congress for federal funding for the Bridge to Nowhere. Palin did not challenge Gibson when he explained that “it’s now pretty clearly documented that you supported that bridge before you opposed it.”

Palin had dropped the lie from her two speeches before her fellow Alaskans, some of whom are reportedly angered by her false bridge claim. But during a campaign rally in Carson City, NV yesterday, Palin re-introduced the lie, falsely claiming for the ninth time that she said to Congress, “‘Thanks, but no thanks’ on that Bridge to Nowhere”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/14/palin-lies-32/

ThinkProgress has gone a step further. They have documented the McCain-Palin lies and found that Palin, McCain, and surrogates have repeated the lie 32 times!

Carly Fiorina repeated the lie just this morning on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopolous, and had to be corrected by the host:

ThinkProgress provides more detail:

As ThinkProgress has documented, Palin has aggressively pursued earmark funding for her state as governor, requesting nearly $750 million in federal funds, “by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.” Just last March, Palin wrote an op-ed in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, explaining that her “role at the federal level is simply to submit the most well-conceived earmark requests we can.”

Fiorina’s assertion that it is a “fact” that Palin “rejected the money for the Bridge to Nowhere” is wrong. Once Congress removed the designation for the bridge from the earmark, Palin took the money and redirected it to other projects.

As Keith Ashdown, chief investigator for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, pointed out, Palin’s constant claim to have said “thanks but no thanks” to the bridge earmark is simply a lie: “To say ‘thanks but no thanks’ would imply that they didn’t take the money. And they got every dime of it.”

Now, it’s time for Truth or Dare with the Mainstream Media. Can they just laugh this off? Can they remain silent? If they do remain silent, will they not tip their hand that they function as Corporate surrogates, and as a mouthpiece for the Republican party?

I’m hoping that Barack Obama can see from this just how deep the GOP infestation exists in the corporatist media, and will respond appropriately.