Mistruth and Miss Alberta

What the fuck is "mistruth"?

• “Before I do, I wanted to clear the air about a mistruth that some are determined to keep recycling and recirculating -- I guess not surprising, but nonetheless disappointing when we're talking about a nomination for the Supreme Court where you'd think the Senate would actually insist on a debate on the merits.”
  

  The Huffington Post: John Kerry: Clearing the Air on Swirling Mistruths About Kagan's Military Stance

The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.

George Orwell
Politics and the English Language