Republican attack dogs fall flat

First, there was the G.O.P.-incited flare-up over Ms. Pelosi’s request for a military jet to transport her from Washington to her home district in California—the same service that had been provided to her Republican predecessor, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, for the previous five years.

The Republican National Committee, The Washington Times, the Drudge Report and a small army of Congressional Republicans fanned out to claim that Ms. Pelosi was simply trying to live like a queen at the taxpayers’ expense.

The story riled up elements of the G.O.P. base, but it quickly fell apart when—rather inconveniently—it came to light that Ms. Pelosi had made the request on the advice of the Pentagon and with Mr. Bush’s blessing, and that she also offered to simply fly commercial if the arrangement would be too complicated.

Then there was the Speaker’s recent trip to Syria, aggressively decried by the same chorus. Again, never mind that Republican members of Congress had taken identical trips in the preceding weeks and months, or that Ms. Pelosi’s own delegation included a Republican House member, David Hobson of Ohio.

At the tail end of her trip, her critics even stirred up chatter that Ms. Pelosi would next head to Iran—something she quickly put the kibosh on, though not before the massively influential Drudge Report gave it some play. They lie and lie until some people believe them.