And a meme takes hold.

Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.

At least that's the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain's work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

Perhaps the only upside for John McCain right now is the fact that most voters are not likely paying attention to the daily back and forth of the campaign at this juncture and are instead focused on the situation with the economy, and as such this particular story may not trickle down from the Beltway down to the electorate. On the other hand, this story perfectly fits into the meme that has been developing in recent days, namely that McCain and his campaign will say anything -- even lie through his teeth -- in order to win the Presidency.

We saw how damaging (even if untrue) that meme was for Al Gore eight years ago. So with the McCain campaign fully feeding the current story line by releasing untruthful ads, flat out lying about issues ranging from Sarah Palin's background to Barack Obama's policies, and now claiming that McCain helped create BlackBerrys (weren't they developed by a Canadian company?), it may get real hard for McCain to shake the "liar" label.

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It's a bad day for a Republican when even Karl Rove says he isn't being truthful enough, but it's an even worse day when a Republican is forced to admit that the basis of one of his ads, which has already been called into question by Rove, is baloney.

Did Barack Obama really call Sarah Palin a pig, as a John McCain ad leads people to believe?

"No," McCain said Monday.

Whoops. Now McCain is still defending his advertisement, saying that Barack Obama "chooses his words very carefully" -- or in other words somehow even though he wasn't calling Sarah Palin a pig he was slyly implying she is, or at least trying to implant the idea within the public that she is a pig (because that's not tortured logic).

But it's the lede that really hurts McCain. All but admitting that an ad you ran, an ad during which time you said "I approve this message," is a crock is just not good news -- particularly after you just stood up for the ad. Here's McCain less than a week ago on ABC's "The View" trying to claim that his ad was not a lie:

Now, just a handful of days later McCain conceded that the basis of his ad is not grounded in truth. These are trying times for McCain and his campaign as they finally find out that lying through their teeth can actually come back to bite them down the road.

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Yesterday I noted that it looked like the those in the establishment media were finally beginning to come to the conclusion that many of us had arrived at a long time ago: That John McCain will say and do anything -- including lie through his teeth -- in order to feed his insatiable ambition. Now even Karl Rove is starting to fret publicly about problems with McCain's ability to tell the truth.

Per Jonathan Martin, for those who want to read and not just see the quote, Rove said McCain had "gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test." You know it's rough times when even Rove says a Republican candidate isn't being truthful enough.

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Back in 2000, one of the real drags on the Gore campaign was the perception pushed forward by the establishment media that the Democratic nominee was less than truthful. Interestingly enough, it's looking increasingly possible that John McCain may be being tagged with the label of "liar", which might cause some real headaches for his candidacy going forward. Take a look, for instance, at this exchange from ABC's "The View" from yesterday:

It's not just the hosts of "The View" hitting McCain for not being truthful in his attacks on Barack Obama, in his storytelling about Sarah Palin's experience and background -- about you name it -- we're beginning to see some of the most established names in the news business calling out McCain's truthfulness. And it's occurring even on the most mundane issues. Take a look at this report today from Bloomberg running under the headline, "McCain-Palin Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed by Officials."

Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can't substantiate the figures McCain's aides are claiming.

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

In recent days, journalists attending the rallies have been raising questions about the crowd estimates with the campaign. In a story on Sept. 11 about Palin's attraction for some Virginia women voters, Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign.

The McCain campaign may believe that it will be able to get away with stretching teh truth -- at times even beyond the point of recognition. Indeed, it appears that the campaign is intent on continuing these questionable practices. But while McCain has been able to ride the tide of these tactics to a point where today he's tied in the national polling, or perhaps a couple of points ahead, it's not clear to me that McCain can weather much more press calling his ability to be truthful with the American people -- to be a "straight shooter" -- into question, because all of the sudden the first thought that may come to voters' minds with regards to McCain will not be his long tenure of service to the country but rather the continued falsehoods coming out of his campaign and even his own mouth.

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