Why the media won’t say Donald Trump is lying

[Commentary] When Donald Trump says that he saw "thousands" of Muslims celebrating on the streets of Jersey City (NJ) during the 9/11 attacks, is he lying? The media has taken a lot of flak for not stating that he was. Feel free to peruse the Twitter maelstrom, if you wish, but the essence is simple. Fact-checkers, like our own Glenn Kessler, have found no evidence of anything even close to what Trump claimed. Why, then, can't we simply say he's lying?

The problem that arises is that we can't know his intentionality. There's also the question of exaggeration. In the wake of his comments, defenders of Trump (who are legion) have pointed to other reports of celebrations at different times, in different places and at different scales. If Trump was referring to some other event on another day and at a different scale, was he lying? If he inflated his story to some degree to reinforce his apparent strategy of engendering fear among Republican voters, is that a lie or is it rhetoric?