I cannot quite keep count at this point of the bald-faced lies that the McCain-Palin campaign has been telling to a pliant, pathetic, useless excuse for an American press corps. But here's the latest. We were all told by the McCain-Palin campaign that Sarah Palin had visited Iraq earlier this year:

Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.

This was another simple lie. Not a distortion, a lie. But, as we know, the McCain-Palin campaign tells massive lies and when called on them, first try a dodge, rather than the truth. And so when asked to give more details about her trip to Iraq, we were first told:

Asked to clarify where she traveled in Iraq, Palin's spokeswoman, Maria Comella, confirmed that "She visited a military outpost on the other side of the Kuwait-Iraq border."

So not far into Iraq, but definitely Iraq, right? Wrong, according to "Lieutenant Colonel Dave Osborn, commander of the 3d Battalion, 207th Infantry of the Alaska National Guard, who was in charge of the 570 local troops serving in Kuwait and Iraq."

Here's the truth:

On the second day of the trip, he said, Palin was flown to the border crossing, about 100 miles north of Camp Buehring, where she spent the morning meeting with troops and presiding over a ceremony in which an Alaska National Guard soldier extended his enlistment. But she did not venture into Iraq, Osborn said. "You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and [the crossing] is where her permissions were," he said. Palin did not stay the night in Iraq, and spent the rest of the second day at Camp Virginia and Ali Al Salem Air Base, Osborn said.

Her alleged visit to Ireland was also, it turns out, a refueling stop. She didn't leave the plane. I swear to you I'm not making any of this up.

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