It has been a common Republican talking point, but it’s patently false — the Chinese are not drilling off Cuba’s coasts. The day after Cheney made the bogus claim, the V.P.’s office acknowledged that he was mistaken.

And yet, for some reason, high-profile Republicans can’t stop repeating the claim that’s already been debunked. Maybe conservatives have decided that they can’t win a debate on energy policy on the merits, so misleading people about communists stealing our oil is the better strategy. Here’s failed presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani talking to CNN’s resident right-winger, Glenn Beck, Wednesday night:

Maybe it’s my imagination, but it almost seems as if high-profile Republicans have been repeating the false claim more now that it has been debunked.

Talking Points Memo has been keeping track of all the examples, and there are some real doozies in there. Some Republicans have altered the myth a little — I think Giuliani is the first to suggest that the Cubans and the Chinese are taking our oil — but they’re all repeating a charge that isn’t remotely true. Either they don’t know what they’re talking about, or they know the claim is false and repeat it anyway. At this point, it’s hard to know which is the case.

You’ll notice in the clip that the hosts of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, are complaining about an alleged “hit piece” on the Republican network, published in the New York Times by Jacques Steinberg and Steven Reddicliffe. They showed pictures of both Times journalists.

However, Fox News digitally altered the images of both, yellowing teeth, exaggerating noses, darkening eyes and eliminating hair. (Take a minute to go to Media Matters’ piece on this, so you can see the actual pictures of the Times’ journalists and what Fox News did to manipulate them.)

According to a report in E&P, Times culture editor Sam Sifton called FNC’s photo alterations “disgusting” and the criticism of the paper’s reporting “a specious and meritless claim.” Asked if the paper planned to respond to Fox News’ actions, Sifton said the Times would not: “It is fighting with a pig, everyone gets dirty and the pig likes it.”

And what does Fox News have to say about this? In a striking display of cowardice, the network hasn’t responded to requests for comment, and “Fox & Friends” did not mention the incident Thursday morning.

In just the past few weeks, Fox News has been forced to apologize repeatedly for its on-air antics. I appreciate the fact that Fox News doesn’t care about or respect journalistic standards, but yet another apology is obviously in order.

Not enough? How about this — James Dobson issued a statement in February, insisting he would not vote for McCain in the general election and would stay home if McCain was the GOP nominee. For that matter, Pat Robertson has said he would not vote for McCain “under any circumstances.” Dobson and Robertson, of course, are the movement’s two biggest, most well-known leaders.

The whole “agents of intolerance” thing was apparently tough to get over. It’s hard for a candidate to “Sister Souljah” conservative evangelical activists, and then seek their support two cycles later. The religious right may be crazy, but it’s a movement with a long memory.

That, however, was before Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, and started earning enough support to possibly split the evangelical vote. All of a sudden, McCain doesn’t look so bad anymore.

Conservative evangelical leaders met privately this week to discuss putting aside their misgivings about John McCain and coalescing around the Republican’s presidential bid while urging him to consider social conservative favorite Mike Huckabee as a running mate.

About 90 of the movement’s leading activists gathered Tuesday night in Denver for a meeting convened by Mathew Staver, who heads the Florida-based legal advocacy group Liberty Counsel.

Many evangelical leaders backed other GOP candidates early on and remain wary of McCain’s commitment to their causes and his previous criticisms of movement leaders. But with the presidential field now set, many evangelical leaders are taking a more pragmatic view, realizing also that the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is making a strong play for evangelical voters and talking freely about his faith.

Christian conservative leaders? Choosing pragmatism over principles? You don’t say.

What’s striking, though, is that the religious right looks like a cheap date. McCain has barely done any real outreach to the movement at all — indeed, McCain had two people devoted to courting evangelical Christians and he fired both — and while he has made all kinds of far-right assurances to the GOP’s business and neocon factions, the religious right hasn’t won much in the way of concessions. He even threw John Hagee and Rod Parsley under the bus — after months of cultivating their support — once they became inconvenient.

Apparently, that no longer matters. For most religious-right leaders, the prospect of Obama winning 40 percent of the evangelical vote, as Mark DeMoss recently predicted, is enough to send shivers down their spine. If that means cozying up to McCain, so be it.

I’d add, though, that this doesn’t exactly point to a thriving, vibrant political movement. The religious right couldn’t stop McCain from easily winning the Republican nomination, can’t stop Obama from making inroads with evangelical voters, and couldn’t even win any major concessions from McCain before rolling over and embracing him.

The religious right’s obituary has been written before, but I can’t remember the last time the movement seemed this irrelevant.

* An “independent” arm of the Republican National Committee will spend $3 million on TV ads in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, starting Sunday. The ads will focus on energy policy.

* McCain’s allies have found another loophole in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, and will funnel funds through the Republican Governors Association.

* Elizabeth Edwards will head up Health Care for America Now, which intends to invest $40 million over the next several months, promoting universal healthcare in a national TV ad campaign.

* The Democratic National Convention probably won’t be shortened to three nights instead of four.

* The McCain campaign is worried about Virginia.

* Rasmussen shows Obama leading McCain in New York by 31 points, 60 percent to 29 percent.

* An AP/Yahoo poll shows that more Americans would rather have Barack Obama than John McCain at their summer cookout.

* And despite widespread reports to the contrary, Obama did not deny a fist bump to a child in Ohio this week.