The Times had a piece Friday in the Politics Section about one of the leading candidates for president 2008: “Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and Time Again.” They give examples:
When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”
…Mr. Giuliani’s own memoir states that spending grew an average of 3.7 percent for most of his tenure; an aide said Mr. Giuliani had meant to say that he had proposed a 7 percent reduction in per capita spending during his time as mayor.
The article also quotes other Giuliani statements that are ‘incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong’ – and then goes on to show that they are all wrong. New York City is not the only city in America that has reduced crime every year since 1994.
I suppose you could make excuses for his ‘exaggeration’ of the pre-Mayor-Giuliani murder statistics, but when he overquotes by a minimum of 20-25%, I’m comfortable labeling that too as ‘just plain wrong’.
However, in politics as in life, the more insistent and certain you sound when you make things up, the more likely you are to be believed. Or, as the article put it:
On the campaign trail he often wields data, without notes, with prosecutorial zeal to hammer home his points.
“With prosecutorial zeal” jumped out at me.
Is this a fair comparison? We’re talking about the fervor with which a politician makes his case that he should be elected, not the other guy, details be damned.
Certainly that’s different than a prosecutor standing in front of a jury, full of righteous indignation and moral certitude that the defendant committed the crime. Isn’t it?
[I don’t engage in much political conversation on this blog. For more substantive blogging about this and related topics see: Life is Rich, Deborah Lipstadt, Kiko’s House.]
