Things must be falling apart at the McCain campaign. Usually they are very good at controlling media attention, but this time they just fell flat. Essentially, they held a conference call with reporters to complain about how often they’re being called “liars” and to deflect the main story of the day, which is that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was a big-time lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at least in part responsible for the current crisis (more on that above). Apparently, the media embargo on coverage of unseemly McCain activity is starting to show cracks, and McCain’s people are getting nervous about it, with this big new story just out. Funny, how the media can start calling you liars after you have lied heavily and consistently for so long. And, as it turns out, the media reports following the conference call were pretty much all about the conference call and what a joke it was (except for Fox News, which of course covered it as favorably as they could).

They complained that the media was “completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for Obama” (translation: you’re reporting about McCain a little bit more accurately and are no longer completely in the tank for us, so that means you’re shilling for Obama).

To set the media right, they insisted that the reporters focus on Obama dirt, and they just happened to have three stories they wanted the media to focus on this week instead of the Davis story, and instead of noting how incessantly the McCain camp is spewing lies. The unfortunate thing about their pitch: it was filled with more lies.

They wanted the media to report heavily on these stories:

• One of Biden’s sons is a lobbyist for banks and credit card companies–except the isn’t, he was an executive for a bank and credit card company, but never lobbied for them.
• Obama began his political career with fundraisers at Weather Underground member William Ayers–except he didn’t; he held a single campaign event at Ayers’ house in 1995, but it wasn’t a fundraiser, and Ayers never gave Obama any money.
• Obama surrogate Robert Wexler called Sarah Palin a Nazi sympathizer–except he didn’t; he called Pat Buchanan a Nazi sympathizer, and noted that Sarah Palin supported him, remarks which he retracted and apologized for.

These were listed and debunked by The Politico, which noted that the stories are all unfavorable about Obama when only the truth is told, but the lies piled onto them just made the McCain camp seem even more the bunch of liars they protested the media was calling them. When these were pointed out, the McCain campaign replied back that they were “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.” Regard that as you may.

But the McCain campaign is really laying it on. One can assume either that they have informed the base of the talking points, or set up a woman attending an event to scold and shame the media back into McCain’s camp from the public’s angle:

Schmidt’s anger has apparently bubbled over to McCain supporters as well. At a town hall in Scranton today, instead of asking the candidate a question, a woman issued a diatribe against the media.

“I also want to take the opportunity to ask the media, where is your 30 investigators over in Chicago looking at Ayers? We want the media to start doing their job and stop picking on little children because of their age and their pregnancies. Shame on you! Shame on all of you’s!”

“That is a great question,” McCain responded.

Did I mistake that, or did McCain just morph into Bush? Remember Bush’s phony town halls where people just got up and praised him without asking anything, and Bush thanked them for the “question”? The student has become the master.