As the convention speeches are picked apart by the opposition for fibs, lies and truth-stretching blarney, I’d like to pick out one such rhetorical flourish — or downright untruth — coming from Joe Lieberman Tuesday night. It set my teeth on edge.

He said:

You know, when others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, which would have been a disaster for the USA; when colleagues like Barack Obama were voting to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield, John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion, advocate the surge, support the surge.

And because of that, today, America’s troops are coming home, thousands of them, and they’re coming home in honor. (emphasis mine)

Thousands of troops are not coming home — unless he is counting those who are coming home and are immediately replaced by others, which would be a rhetorical slight of hand, and completely misleading and deceitful on his part. The five brigades that made up The Surge all came home by July. There are about 146,000 combat troops contractors there now, plus countless more non-combat, support troop contractors. Gen. David Petraeus is saying today that he thinks combat troops may be out of Baghdad by July of next summer, but that is still conditions-based. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki wants the US completely out by 2011, but that agreement is not yet official. There is news today, that Petraeus might take one brigade before the new administration takes over in January and shift it over into Afghanistan, which is, by all accounts and using Lieberman’s words “a disaster.” None of this adds up to Lieberman’s shifty assertions Tuesday night,

Lieberman’s transgression goes beyond playing a shell game with troop movements. His words on Iraq have a special impact for the audience at home because he is so closely identified with John McCain and his push for The Surge. The key national security argument of the McCain-Palin ticket from here forward will be that The Surge worked. We are winning. McCain’s judgment brought us there. To falsely — and fatuously — suggest that troops are coming home as a result is taking these talking points to an entirely new, and untruthful level. He should be called on it before the Republicans say it enough times to make it true.

UPDATE : I mistakenly wrote above that we have 146,000 troops plus support soldiers on the ground in Iraq. In fact, that 146,000 includes all support. We did, however, have about 38,000 Americans working as support and security contractors in the Iraq war theater as of earlier this year.