I hope I'm right about this but it seems as if the Liar Express has run out of steam. McCain has conveyed so many lies about Obama in such a short period of time that the cumulative effect has managed to backfire on him. The pace and volume of just outright fabricated assertions has been so fast and furious that it finally piled up like a 50 car accident.

Okay, enough of the metaphors, but it's my sense that McCain shot his wad too early with the smear-type tactics that Schmidt learned so well from Karl Rove. If memory serves, I believe the Swift Boat crap came later in 2004, say around October, and by the time the sensation created by scurrilous ads was beginning to wane it was already November, thus avoiding any accountability backlash. Also, the Swift Boat lies were not directly traceable to the Bush campaign so the media was able to better feign ignorance when it came to questioning and criticizing the offending candidate.

In this case, the lies are directly being leveled by the McCain campaign, so it's that much easier for the MSM to get a stiffer spine and look heroic to the people by finally drawing the line. It's not only the ladies on The View who are taking advantage of this opportunity to appear responsible by doing the right thing, but we've also seen Fox News of all places actually say enough already.

The end result of all of this should be that McCain's credibility goes out the window, he's no longer taken seriously as a candidate, Palin's momentary popularity likewise begins to head south, and the two of them have nothing left but the issues to run on. That said it leaves them with very little since most of their positions are opposite what the majority of the voting public favors.

The serious miscalculation was to crank up the smear machine too early and to have it revving at 100 mph -- but then again it was perhaps decided to be their only hope. The Republican convention was an embarrassing non-event which had little hope of serving as a lasting springboard. Any flow-over bump in polls came from the still-fresh buzz obtained from the Palin pick, which has since grown old quickly. So perhaps the gamble all along was to trash early and often with the hope that something would stick so they could then run with it for weeks. Didn't happen. Instead the gamble was a bust because to venture down that course of action comes the risk that nothing would stick, and then you're just left standing neck-deep in lies, appearing weak, shameful, and completely not deserving of the job you're seeking.

Hopefully this is exactly what the McCain campaign has wrought on itself. In some ways, it appears as if the Obama camp knew if they just remained patient and didn't rashly respond to the point of making an unfortunate remark, that the other side would in fact just go too far and implode. If true, then it's exactly that kind of thinking and wisdom that we need in the White House.