One of Them Is Lying

As the Republican and Democratic conventions approach, some things are certain. We’ll hear a lot of soaring rhetoric and teeth-gnashing. We’ll see more pomp than a Kardashian Instagram feed. And we’ll be fed a steady stream of hyperbole, cherry-picked factoids, and outright lies. Mark Twain famously observed that politicians would never lie “unless it was absolutely convenient;” and the Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen told us, “Nobody speaks the truth when there is something they must have.” (...