Let me clarify (as I did in the comments section of my post) that by 'exaggerating' in this context I mean only leaving off epistemic qualifiers (like 'there is some reason to believe that,' 'it would not be unreasonable to assume that,' and so on). In other words, Bush exaggerated the degree of confidence with which it was reasonable to believe what he was asserting. I do think we expect politicians to exaggerate in that sense.
Now that Raines is gone, the NYT is fighting to reclaim the center...