You have now joined ferret owners, sidewalk artists, hot dog vendors, publicly funded attorneys for poor people, low-income community college students, museum curators, a couple of innocent black men shot dead by the police, the sections of the New York City charter governing rules of succession to the mayoralty and, of course, Hillary Clinton, as objects of Rudy Giuliani’s demagoguery and wrath.
You may by now have heard the story. In a radio ad that his campaign prepared for New Hampshire voters, Giuliani tells listeners that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and goes on to say: “My chance of surviving cancer - and thank God I was cured of it - in the United States: 82%. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44% under socialised medicine.”
The numbers are false. The actual five-year survival rate in Britain is 74%, which is still lower than America’s.
It turned out that Giuliani’s numbers were from a seven-year-old article in a conservative policy journal. The article was written by his own healthcare policy adviser, who admitted that his comparison was a “crude” interpretation of a study by a respected health policy group. The group, in turn, said the article’s author had grossly misused its numbers.
That’s about as red-handed as anyone in politics gets caught these days. But when asked if the campaign would continue to use the figure, a Giuliani spokeswoman said, “Yes, we will.”
[link (emphasis mine)]
Isn’t that sort of thing called lying? What would Pat Robertson say?
Politics means never letting the truth stand in the way of telling a good story….. or gaining White House type power.
Trackposted to Nuke’s, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Pirate’s Cove, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Heh. I’m afraid a depressingly large percentage of Republicans have simply lost their capacity to tell truth from lies. Or their interest. Heck, if you can swallow the notion that Iraq in 2001 posed a danger to the US, what’s a few thousand imaginary prostate cancer victims?