Giuliani’s Shaky Relationship With the Truth

by Seth Michaels, Nov 7, 2007

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is running a radio ad attacking Democratic health care proposals. In it, he says he was lucky to have gotten cancer treatment through the U.S. health care system, claiming the prostate cancer survival rate of 82 percent here is twice the rate in England.

The only problem: The claim he’s making is completely untrue. As economist Paul Krugman notes:

You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The details are technical, but the bottom line is that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America.

So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false.

And what’s more, Giuliani’s treatment came while he was covered by a plan provided through the State of New York—a plan not unlike one proposed by several Democratic candidates, proposals that Giuliani is attacking in this very ad.

Giuliani isn’t backing down from his shoddy statistics. According to The Washington Post, which called the Giuliani ad “spectacularly wrong”:

Instead of acknowledging his error, Giuliani chose to repeat it on several occasions, including a campaign event here in Washington last Friday.

For the real story on America’s health crisis and what needs to be done, check out the AFL-CIO’s national health care campaign.

This is more than just an issue of Giuliani’s understanding of health care. It’s an issue of trust. As Krugman puts it:

Why isn’t Mr. Giuliani’s behavior here considered not just a case of bad policy analysis but a character issue?

… Health care is the pre-eminent domestic issue for the 2008 election. Surely the American people deserve candidates who do their homework on the subject.

Yet what we actually have is the front-runner for the Republican nomination apparently basing his health-care views on something he read somewhere, which he believed without double-checking because it confirmed his prejudices.

Health care isn’t the only area in which Giuliani seems to have a shaky relationship with the truth. Incidents of exaggerations and outright lies are piling up:

• He falsely said  he was at Ground Zero “as often” as actual rescue workers. In fact, over the months following the 9/11 attacks, he spent only a few dozen hours at the site.
• He defended his stance on torture by claiming he used “intensive questioning” of suspects while a federal prosecutor in New York. A former top Giuliani aide denies the claim and says U.S. attorneys are not directly involved in interrogations.
• He alleged his scandal-tainted ally Bernie Kerik was responsible for a 60 percent drop in the city’s crime rate. Crime actually dropped about 8 percent during Kerik’s tenure.
• He claimed he had “30 years of experience” fighting terrorism. Yet while he was mayor, he almost never mentioned the subject publicly and according to aides didn’t have much interest in it.
• At the 9/11 Commission, he attacked firefighters, saying many had died because they chose to stay. In reality, many firefighters didn’t hear evacuation orders.

Is Giuliani living in his own fantasy world? Or is he just breathtakingly cynical, assuming that he can get away with saying whatever he wants?

For more information about the 2008 presidential election, visit Working Families Vote 2008.

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