Mendacity?

Obama and race in America, Zeitgeist and 9/11, all still on the to-do list because they require actual thinking I'm not especially capable of right now. But I can still read, and I just read a good article (from Slate, where else?) about Bush's latest speech on Iraq. It's a pretty thorough deconstruction. It also made me look up the word "mendacity."

The key nugget that you don't hear in many mainstream news outlets is that while Bush's "surge," the addition of five additional combat brigades that began a little over a year ago, has tamped down on much of the violence in the region, that success isn't the reason that five brigades are being withdrawn in July. Even if the surge had been a horrible failure, those five brigades would be returning this summer because their 15-month tours of duty are up - and there are no more brigades ready to replace them. 

This withdrawal to pre-2007 troop levels wasn't a decision based on anything that has or has not happened in Iraq. It was a mathematical inevitability.