Here's an interesting article dealing with lying with the truth, something politicians do all the time. It even has a name: paltering.
While paltering uses true answers to questions being asked, the truth being told usually has little to do with the subject of the question. So in effect paltering is really nothing more than another version of deflection.
When it comes to lying, I have found there are three different means of lying, those being:
-Telling the lie in such a convincing fashion that it makes the person receiving the lie to perceive it as truth. This usually takes great skill and most people can't pull it off.
-Telling the truth, but leaving pertinent information out. In other words lying by omission. A lot of folks can pull this off.
-Last, but not least, there's lying by telling the absolute truth, leaving nothing out, but telling it in such a way that the person(s) hearing it believe you are lying. Like the first means of lying, this one takes considerable skill, equal to or greater than that required to tell a total lie convincingly.
Of the three, I prefer the third for a number of reasons. Probably the biggest is that it takes no effort to remember the lie or lies you are telling because they aren't lies. There's no way anyone can trip you up because you told the truth. It will be their fault that they didn't believe you, not yours.
Not that I am advocating anyone telling lies. I'm not. But if you have to do it go all out.
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
