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The Bush doctrine? What's that?

Flunking a basic foreign policy quiz

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Tracking the McCain campaign's false assertions is probably a full-time job, so I try only to cherry-pick the choicest examples - such as the whopper uttered by McCain himself during his appearance earlier today on The View.

He deserves credit for going on the show and mixing it up with such a disputatious bunch - indeed, one of McCain's best traits is that he welcomes argumentation and generally handles it well - but sometimes the strain of making the case for Palin just becomes so tough that truth becomes a casualty.

McCain was in the midst of arguing that Palin would "reform Washington," when some of the interlocuters pointed out that she hasn't even reformed Alaska, that in fact she has taken "a lot" of earmarked federal pork. To which McCain inexplicably replied, "Not as governor she didn't."

Oh, really?

Alaska in 2008 is reportedly receiving $346 million in earmarked federal pork, which works out to $506 for each Alaskan - the highest per-capita rate of any state in the nation, according to the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks earmark spending.

Clearly McCain would like the voters to forget George W. Bush so that he can run on his own, but he is making his task potentially more difficult by becoming nearly as truth-averse as the man he seeks to succeed.