This time there really is a wolf!

Eric Boehlert writes in Media Matters about a phenomenon I've also been wondering about: the press seems to have noticed, and begun pointing out, that McCain and Palin are lying a lot.

So why hasn't the public responded much to it?

Maybe because the press has no credibility after spending the last...well, several years at least, obsessing about trivialities. As Boehlert puts it:

When the press wants to inform voters about outrageous campaign conduct (like the Bridge to Nowhere, McCain's untrue claim that Obama plans to raise "your" taxes, or even in the margins the lipstick fiasco), the press no longer wields the same authority, in part because the political press has consciously folded its work into the larger entertainment culture.

These are the consequences of shallowness over the long term. If you spend months or years obsessing over fake controversies and shallow details--who's an "elitist" because of their haircut or what they order instead of coffee, whose voice is annoying, what type of lettuce or cheese someone favors, who looks silly bowling or windsurfing--you don't get to suddenly pivot and call people out on actual issues. Or if you do, you can't expect the public to accept that you're suddenly being serious.

You fixate on drivel, and people will just assume you're talking drivel. Let's just all hope that doesn't end up immunizing McCain from the consequences of his remarkable dishonesty in the final phase of this rather important campaign.