"How can man know himself? He is a dark and hidden thing."

Said Nietzsche, quoted in the Wall Street Journal's review of the book "Mindwise" by Nicholas Epley. If you can get past the subscription wall, there's an entrancing Robert Capa photograph of a man in a mask, furthering this blog's theme this morning. (If you can't see it there, see it here.)

There's also this excerpt, for what it's worth:

Consider, Mr. Epley says, the differences between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. In September 1938, Neville Chamberlain, as well as other leaders around the world, believed Hitler when he said he wouldn't invade Czechoslovakia (turns out he was just buying time to get his invading forces maximally prepared). Some six decades later, President George W. Bush, as well as other leaders around the world, failed to believe Saddam Hussein when he said he had no weapons of mass destruction. (He didn't, though according to the postwar Iraq Survey Group's conclusions, he valued the ambiguity as a deterrent and led even his own army to conclude that he did.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Quoting the part about Saddam, dhp said:

The best way to lie is to tell the truth unconvincingly.

Which raises the question whether Bush lied when he expressed a belief in the lie Saddam told in the form of telling the truth unconvincingly.  Did Bush correctly perceive that Saddam intended to be disbelieved and then fall for the lie that Saddam did have WMD or did Bush mean to be taken as a liar who in fact knows that Saddam is trying to lie by telling what Bush knows is the truth, that Saddam does not have WMD?