State Department watchers will have noticed over the past several weeks a noticeable up tick in the frequency of English-language propaganda dispatched from the Department obviously aimed at a US audience. Packaged as "DipNotes," these missives have become so at odds with objective reality that one wonders whether State.gov has somehow been hacked.

Titled "Russia Today’s Disinformation Campaign," literally every line of today's DipNote contains a whopper. It was written by the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel, a former managing editor of TIME magazine.