Did the president of the United States make a rare admission on national television that he had told an untruth? Or had he merely engaged in a dodge of the sort that is common in politics? Journalists by nature shy from pinning the "liar" label on any political leader, but President Bush's acknowledgments that he had not been forthcoming about his plans to dump Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have kicked up a fuss at the White House and sparked a debate about the limits of presidential evasion. Six days before the election, Bush told three wire-service reporters in an...