'Straight Talk Express' has trouble getting it straight?

WASHINGTON — The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment.

He has said that Palin never asked for money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor, even though she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year.

He says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts.

McCain's skirting of facts has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and pros are watching to see how much voters disregard reports noting factual holes in the claims.

McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the GOP nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.

Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced less-than-truthful campaigning.

Politicians usually modify or drop claims when newspaper and TV news accounts conclude they are untrue or greatly exaggerated. But McCain and Palin were defiant this week in the face of similar reports.

Day after day she said she had told Congress "no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere, a rural Alaska project abandoned when critics challenged its costs and usefulness. For nearly a week, news outlets had documented that Palin supported the bridge when running for governor in 2006, noting she turned against it only after it became an object of ridicule and a symbol of out-of-control earmarking.

The McCain-Palin campaign made at least three other claims this week that omitted key details or made dubious assumptions to criticize Obama:

--It equated lawmakers' requests for money for special projects with corruption, even though Palin has sought millions in such earmarks this year.

--It produced an Internet ad implying Obama had called Palin a pig when he used the phrase, putting "lipstick on a pig."

--It produced an ad saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds defended the campaign's statements. "We include factual backup in every one of our TV spots," he said.

Obama has made exaggerated or questionable assertions as well. Earlier this year, he repeated a claim that more black men are in prison than in college, after news accounts refuted it. He also used a McCain remark about having troops in Iraq for "100 years" to exaggerate McCain's proposals for being fully engaged militarily.

In general, Obama has been quicker to react to news accounts challenging his accuracy. Faced with skeptical reports this year, for instance, he stopped saying he "worked his way" through college, and instead credited hard work and scholarships.