The Anchorage Daily News finally admits that Dan Fagan told a couple of whoppers:

Dan Fagan’s column on Page B-4 Sunday mischaracterized federal regulations regarding apprenticeship programs. Those regulations do not require all apprentice candidates to have a high school diploma; an apprenticeship program may decide for itself whether its admission criteria mandate a diploma. There are more than 90 electrical apprenticeship sponsors in Alaska, not three as stated in Fagan’s column.

First of all, Fagan did not “mischaracterize” - he lied. The lies appeared in last Sunday’s edition of the ADN. This is Friday. It took five whole days for the newspaper to publish a correction. 

And now the lies have become part of the package of talking points which Palin-haters on both the left and the right use to routinely smear Gov. Palin and her family. This correction will not stop them from repeating the lies. 

There is a saying, attributed to James Watt:    

“A lie can run around the world before the truth gets its boots on.”

And a quotation, attributed to Vladimir Lenin:

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

Interesting how that works, isn’t it? 

But here’s the bottom line: a teenager who was only trying to do right by his fiancee and infant son has been forced to give up the only means he had to do so. No matter. Dan Fagan got what he wanted. He got to smear the Palins, and the lies he used to do it have now become part of the liberal lexicon. Yet he’s a conservative. One liberal blogger put it this way:    

“Don’t expect Fagan to be an ally on anything but attacking Governor Sarah Palin.”

So when it comes to attacking Sarah Palin, Dan Fagan, the conservative, has become the left’s useful idiot.

- JP