Krugman: Prostates and Prejudices (Exposes Lies of Rudy's Ad)

[RamboLiberal]

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and thank God I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent,” says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad attacking Democratic plans for universal health care. “My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.”

It would be a stunning comparison if it were true. But it isn’t. And thereby hangs a tale — one of scare tactics, of the character of a man who would be president and, I’m sorry to say, about what’s wrong with political news coverage.

Let’s start with the facts: Mr. Giuliani’s claim is wrong on multiple levels — bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.

Mr. Giuliani got his numbers from a recent article in City Journal, a publication of the conservative Manhattan Institute. The author gave no source for his numbers on five-year survival rates — the probability that someone diagnosed with prostate cancer would still be alive five years after the diagnosis. And they’re just wrong.

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But here’s what I don’t understand: Why isn’t Mr. Giuliani’s behavior here considered not just a case of bad policy analysis but a character issue?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[monarch]

1. K & R

Krugman makes an important point about Rudy's lying health care ad raising a character issue since the media (and the public)seem incapable of focusing on details of major issues.

[immoderate]

2. Americans love to be lied to.

I don't know why.

--IMM

[Tesha]

3. Everyone, everywhere prefers a "pretty lie" to a cold, hard, painful truth.

"I'll cut taxes."

Tesha

[spanone]

4. typical giuliani bullshit

[Igel]

5. The guy who was the source of the quotes responded on 10/31/07.

Oddly, the response was to others, not Krugman, so Krugman essentially ignored it. Not a good thing from a researcher who wants to be considered careful; similarly, Gratzer is bad for not citing the source for his quote ... but Krugman, of course, can both cast blame for not citing sources and feel relieved of the need to do so.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-31dg.html

(I don't actually follow part of what Gratzer say, to be honest.)

[Ian_rd]

6. "Character" is code for the candidate's religion and position on gay marriage. Nothing more.

[Beetwasher]

7. If A DEM Did This It WOULD Be A "Character" Issue In The Traditional Media

Like "Al Gore claims he invented the internet" and is therefore a serial liar. The Traditional Media will take a Dems words completely out of context or merely accept the Repubs spin of the comments and run w/ the "character flaw" issue. When a Repub outright and demonstrably lies repeatedly, it's merely a policy disagreement.

[CatWoman]

8. Giuliani Under Fire: NH Health Care Group Demands Misleading Ad Be Pulled Down

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/02/giuliani-commonwealth/

[eppur_se_muova]

9. The Inconvenient Truth of Rudy's Prostate? nt

[Tactical Progressive]

10. Real, deep lies about important issues by the right-wing are Media-OK

They will promote those lies free of charge in their analysis pieces and repetitious pundit talk. At the very least they let them pass with minor refutation if any. Can you imagine an outraged media, tagging Guliani as a liar over major issues as the 'conventional wisdom'? As the ongoing storyline throughout the election? Neither can I.

Democrats have a different landscape to navigate, as evidenced in the media assault on Hillary Clinton in the last debate. It isn't so much the number of questions they threw at her and about her at the others, or whether the questions were 'tough' or not. It was the type of questions and the twist they put on her responses that was telling. Hillary, or any Democrat leading the fight against the right, will have Catch-22 questions thrown against them, with the following three possibilities:

1) Fail to completely explain and get gotcha'ed for the rest of the campaign with sound-bite 'conventional wisdom' used against them and respeated in every lie-fest from then to the election 'Well, most Americans aren't comfortable with Obama's plans to be nice to terrorist-sponsoring nations instead of being tough.' sprinkled right in the middle of every journo-whore round table discussion from then on.

2) Answer them well, but have one part blown up into a centerpiece or re-contextualized, or both. 'John Edwards would increase taxes to pay for greatly increased social programs, which the American people have shown they don't want.' (The taxes thing is the media's favorite because it instantly pushes a hot-button. A Repub can spend trillions without being hammered on taxes. Anything good a Dem tries to do is contextualized negatively into taxes. If John Edwards were to get the nomination, taxes is the only word you would hear from that point on from the media.) Or as with Hillary the other night giving an appropriately nuanced answer about it being good for NY to try a new license plan - it now becomes Hillary wants, essentially, to just make illegal aliens into citizens with free drivers licenses.

3) If they can't tag you with something they twist out of context, they'll just flat out make up lies. See Al Gore 2000.

If the Democrat tries to correct or properly contextualize what they said, they become dishonest 'flip-floppers', untrustworthy, and even liars whose dishonesty, untrustworthyness and even lies play into pre-existing storylines (created by the media) of dishonesty, untrustworthyness and lying. It's a self-fulfilling cycle created by the dishonest, untrustworthy and lying institution that is American political journalism.

They don't do this at all with Republicans. No matter how much they lie, they don't tag them as liars.


And of course as in Paul Krugman's piece, the other hand is worth coming back to: repeating and promoting Republican lies wholesale - 'The Democrat's plan of socialized medicine scares Americans, ...' will be the fulcrum in every pundit round table.

That's essentially what the corpo journalists do now, promulgate even flat-out, major right-wing lies as truth, and turn Democrats into flip-flop liars, using dishonest media interpretations. It's not so much that the right-wing lies pathologically; it's that they know corporate journalism will help them in every way they can to do it that has given us this depraved system.

When you look at the relative honesty of Democrats in public service and contrast it to the stunning levels of dishonesty that Republicans routinely exhibit, then see who is portrayed by the media as untrustworthy flip-floppers versus who is portrayed as forthright 'values' candidates, you have to realize that this isn't just something within the margin of error, as if it happens both ways. It is purposeful, systemic corruption of honest journalism. It is what they are trying to do.

And the media isn't getting better. They are getting worse. It's a good thing most Americans don't trust them and are rapidly trusting them less and less. It's kind of a race between the two. Everything we can do to point out how dishonest and untrustworthy they are is important.

To that end, thank you Paul Krugman. He could have just left it at Rudy's right-wing lies, but he always goes the extra step to point out who unrelentingly launders those lies, even if by nothing more than letting them play through. It's something we should all be doing.