Why do Republicans lie so much? And how do they get away with it?

Yes, politicians lie, and Democrats do it too, but the Republicans seem to lie so consistently, so audaciously, and with such alacrity that it seems like they are almost incapable of doing anything else. Just last weekend, Frank Luntz , the Republican pollster who crafts the GOP’s daily talking points, sent out a 17-page memo to congressional Republicans instructing them how just lie like crazy to defeat the proposed Consumer Protection Agency and other financial reform legislation. “Just pretend that the bill you’re opposing is a giant bailout for the banks.”

It seems as though once you tell one lie, you have to tell another to defend it, and then another and another until you have to issue a talking points memo to keep it all straight—which is why you see the Republicans, one right after another, repeating the same lie almost word for word: Health care reform is a secret plot to kill old people. Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya, and so not really eligible to be President. Obama is no mere “tax and spend” liberal, he is a socialist, a communist, and a fascist. We also hear that greed is good and empathy is bad. And anything designed for the common good is “socialism.”

But the real question is how are they able to get away with it? It is as if they are able to make and live in their own reality.

The most recent Kos poll shows that 63% of Republicans think that Obama is a socialist and 21% are unsure; 42% believe that Obama was not born in the United States and 22% are unsure; 24% think that Obama wants the terrorists to win, while 33% are unsure; 21% think that ACORN stole the 2008 election and 55% are unsure; 53% think that Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President, while 33% are unsure. But, get this, 39% think that Obama should be impeached, while 29% are unsure—even though there has not even been a hint of wrong-doing.

In a previous Kos poll, the pollsters found that most Republicans get their information from Fox News, and (this was not part of the poll) they think anyone who does share their distorted version of the truth as “biased” by the “left-wing media.”

These lies are glaring and easily disprovable, if anyone cares to check, and yet when Obama calls them out on these untruths, their response is “You Lie!” or Obama is “not listening” or arrogant. When Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow call out Republican legislators on their lies, they simply double down on their statements and carry on as before.

One keeps waiting and waiting for reality to catch up, but it never does.