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Every now and then, when media technology and media practice line up in just the right way, a skilled demagogue manages to slip into the rift. That's one way of interpreting today's news in the context of the McCarthy era, and the outstanding exemplar of today is -- well, let's see if you can pick her name out of the Fair 'n' Balanced coverage here.

Sarah Palin reads the spin on the news-routines curveball as well as Joe McCarthy ever did. She's been in the news for two cycles now, all from one Wednesday night posting on her Facebook page, in which she basically made up some more stuff about the "death panel" fabrications she introduced at the weekend. Like Sen. McCarthy in his prime, the moving finger tweets, and having twit, moves on. Follow-up questions? You have to catch her first!

The "death panels," of course, are the Obama-led tribunals that will decide little Trig Palin's fate, much as the British NHS put paid to renowned scientist Stephen Hawking. (As usual, Palin was first to introduce her children into the story line; the "leave my family out of this" bit doesn't work if no one's put the family into this, so why take chances?) And they're -- oh, hell, did we say this already? She made 'em up. As she demonstrated repeatedly during the campaign last year, Sarah Palin is an outstanding liar: inventive, enthusiastic, relentless, like a point guard weaving through traffic and making stuff up. Also!

So if you're feeling guilty about how your journalistic forebears handled the McCarthy thing, here's a chance to atone for it. Next time the ex-governor makes things up in public, say so! The AP seems to be coming around, even referring to her "debunked claim" in the lede of its latest 700-word take on the matter. And the Times (online, at least) is going so far as to suggest that Palin doesn't give a very careful account of the paper by Ezekiel Emanuel she quotes, either. Don't be fooled by teh Facebooks magics. Call it when you see it.