http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2007/10/rudy-lies----an.htmlRudy Giuliani lies. He doesn't merely stretch the truth, as any ambitious pol is wont to do. He just makes stuff up. And when done with abandon, making stuff up is called lying. There is simply no better, no more accurate way to put it -- and in this presidential election cycle, with all that's at stake, we had better start calling a spade a spade, lest we get stuck with another liar of unchecked width and depth.
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The advanced condition of both Rudy's pathology and journalism's indifference to it was brought home to me early this morning upon reading this entry in the Washington Post: "Giuliani's Bid to Woo New Hampshire Independents Centers on Health Care," written by no less than two Post reporters, the camera-hugging Chris Cillizza and Shailagh Murray.
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"In the radio spot, Giuliani mentions his battle with prostate cancer and notes that his chances of surviving the disease in America were 82 percent, while in England his chances would have been 44 percent."
This just as naturally caught and then raised my eye. It seemed an astounding "fact," one either uplifting or thoroughly depressing, depending on one's gender and country of residence. It also seemed quite literally unbelievable. Yet there it sat, in print, with no journalistic probing of it.
So, deploying my vast research skills, I Googled "England prostate cancer survival rate," and up popped the Web site of "Cancer Research UK," the "leading funder of cancer research" in the Queen's realm. Want to know what I found?
I shall quote: "The relative five-year survival rate for men diagnosed in England in 2000–01 was 71%," which indicates that Rudy's flat figure of 44 was creatively arrived at, statistically speaking. Not only that, for mates in Rudy's current age group, 60-69, the survival rate is 83 percent -- one uptick higher than his vaunted statistic for us ruggedly male, American individualists. Yet those socialist bastards are doing it on the government plan.
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we all know Rudy lies, so Chris and Shailagh have some explaining to do