By the time of his political and mental death in 2006, Sharon – with the help of the 2001 crimes against humanity in the US and his successful but mendacious claim that Arafat backed bin Laden – had become, of all things, a peacemaker, while Arafat, who made more concessions to Israeli demands than any other Palestinian leader, was portrayed as a super-terrorist.
To justify the invasion, mendacious claims were made that the Ndebele intended to attack Mashonaland.
The invasion of Iraq, based on false intelligence and mendacious claims of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, was the most obvious example of this.
Gove and his colleagues went on to unleash a blizzard of patently mendacious claims, contributing, along with Trump, to the murky realm of "post-truth politics".
Some rules seemed perverse: Greenmarket prohibits farmers from describing farming methods on price signs (like "hormone free"), ostensibly to protect consumers from mendacious claims.
In this telling, it was the timid, lazy press corps that failed to rigorously challenge the president's core (mendacious) claims about his tax cuts and rationale for heading to war.
Johnny Cash, in the grand spirit of his Opry predecessors, was quick with a yarn; mostly, the fudging was decorative, but occasionally more mendacious claims were broadcast and recorded, particularly regarding the depth and constancy of his nearly lifelong prescription-drug use.
Yesterday the editor defended accusing Mr Grant of making "mendacious smears" after the actor claimed a Mail on Sunday story about his relationship with socialite Jemima Khan was likely to have come from illicit eavesdropping.
It is not difficult to see why funders and research priority setters are attracted to such claims; which even if mendacious - are well intentioned.
He launched a robust defence of his decision to describe Grant's evidence as "mendacious smears", declaring that the actor's claim that a story about him may have been sourced from phone hacking was damaging to his newspaper.
Asked to apologise and withdraw his claim that Grant had made a "mendacious smear" against the Mail group, he said he would only do so if Grant withdrew his own statements attacking his papers.
