AMERICA COULD FACE A WORSE DISASTER THAN ANOTHER 9/11-- A RUDY GIULIANI CABINET

Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times was especially stunning. He dealt with the inability of the mass media to just come out and report that a major, "serious" candidate can't tell the truth. Krugman's specific problem was with Rudy Giuliani's self-serving lies about prostate cancer and health care.

“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.

My dad died from prostate cancer; I did a lot of research into this, probably far more than Giuliani-- and I was just looking for the truth, not for a way to justify a campaign slogan. What I found is quite similar to what Krugman found-- and quite similar to what anyone looking for the unvarnished truth will find: the survival rates of men diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in the U.S. and Britain don't vary; they are identical. And they are identical even though treatment in the U.S. can be as much as 4 or 5 times as costly.

Krugman went on to show how Giuliani was either deceitful or ignorant with his "facts," which he then tried to twist into a case against "socialized medicine," which he is inappropriately labeling the health care reforms of Hillary, Obama and Edwards, even though none of them-- alas-- are remotely like the U.K. system. (Krugman doesn't mention that Giuliani's own Bush-like bogus proposals would leave out millions of Americans-- himself included-- who have any kind of pre-conditions.) Anyway, from there Krugman asks why the media doesn't just expose lying politicians when they lie.

Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, it’s not “in dispute.” It’s not the case that “Democrats say” they’re not advocating British-style socialized medicine; they aren’t.
 
The fact is that the prostate affair is part of a pattern: Mr. Giuliani has a habit of saying things, on issues that range from health care to national security, that are demonstrably untrue. And the American people have a right to know that.

Interestingly, tomorrow's Times roughs Giuliani up a little more forthrightly. One of Giuliani's most glaring problems has to do with the people he choses to surround himself with. He picks an awful lot of losers-- from Thomas Ravenel, a South Carolina coke dealer, to Davis Diaper Vitter, hypocritical closet queens like David Dreier, Jerry Lewis, the single most corrupt man in Congress, Alan Placa, the pederast priest, to Bernie Kerik, the most high profile personnel disaster so far. And he's who the Times focuses on tomorrow-- and completely in terms of Giuliani's handling on the problem that won't go away.

If the rise of Bernard B. Kerik under the mentorship of Rudolph W. Giuliani was meteoric, the speed of his fall was breathtaking.

In December 2004, President Bush nominated Mr. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, to head the federal Department of Homeland Security. Seven days later, Mr. Kerik withdrew as a nominee.

A cascade of questions followed about his judgment as a public official, not least that he had inappropriately lobbied city officials on behalf of Interstate Industrial, a construction firm suspected of links to organized crime. Mr. Giuliani defended Mr. Kerik, a friend and business partner, whom he had recommended to the Bush administration. But he also tried to shield himself from accusations that he had ignored Mr. Kerik’s failings.

Then Giuliani lied about the whole mess, claiming, falsely that he didn't know about Kerik's Mafia connections. His own Investigations Commissioner, Ed Kuriansky, testified that Giuliani had been briefed before he appointed Kerik. And the majority of Giuliani's own cabinet opposed Kerik's obviously inappropriate appointment as police commissioner. Giuliani has tried to obfuscate as best he could about what he knew and when he knew it but when he tried foisting Kerik off on Bush, there is no argument that he knew exactly how involved Kerik was in myriad criminal activities. He "now acknowledges that he should have re-examined his friend before recommending him to the White House and that his recommendation had indeed been a mistake."

Even Kerik remarked, in his autobiography, that joining up with Giuliani was like "becoming part of a mafia family... I was being made.” Kerik had no problem with that and he immediately embarked on a career of crime, much of it on behalf of Giuliani's Republican Party-- and the Mafia. "Yesterday, Mr. Kerik’s lawyer met with federal prosecutors in New York in an effort to stave off indictment." Team Giuliani is worried sick that America's Mayor will somehow wind up to be proven to have been made of the same stuff as America's Sheriff.

In the book Giuliani had ghost-written for his political future run, Leadership one statement stands out like a sore thumb: “I believe that the skill I have developed better than any other was surrounding myself with great people.” If that's his best skill, and he ever gets into the White House, America could soon be wishing we had Bush and Cheney back!