At this point, it appears Rudy Giuliani is just daring the national media. Following up on yesterday’s item, the candidate who can barely go a day without making a wildly misleading exaggeration, has unveiled a new radio ad with a truly audacious whopper, even by Giuliani’s low standards.
OK, Rudy Giuliani has just released an ad claiming that the survival rate from prostate cancer is much higher in America than in Britain, thus proving the failure of socialized medicine.
The problem is that his claim is just plain false. In fact, mortality rates from prostate cancer are almost the same in America and Britain.
So, will this get as much attention as, say, the Edwards haircut or the Hillary laugh? Will it get any coverage at all? Bear in mind that health care is the central domestic issue of this election — and Rudy has just showed that he doesn’t know a thing about it.
It’s really not that complicated. Giuliani, in his campaign spot, claims that the survival rate for prostate cancer patients in the U.S. is 82%, while in England, it’s 44%. Giuliani argues that a universal-coverage system necessarily leads to worse care and more deaths.
But Giuliani doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and his claims were easily debunked.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t just an off-hand comment Giuliani made on the stump. This was a carefully crafted pitch, and put on the air. Giuliani didn’t just flub the facts in response to a voter’s question; he’s intentionally trying to deceive the public with a misleading ad.
And how has the media responded to the leading Republican candidate getting caught lying in a campaign ad? So far, by largely ignoring it.
Reader R.K. alerted me to a discussion on yesterday’s Hardball, where MSNBC’s Chris Matthews showed the ad in its entirety. Matthews and his guests then scrutinized the ad for quite a while. How many mentioned that the ad’s central claim was demonstrably false? None.
Matthews got the discussion started by saying, “Boy, that is classic Live Free or Die, self reliance, the Granite State. Perry, this is like main lining right into that psychology of New Hampshire, which is leave me alone. I don’t trust socialism. Is it going to work in these days, when people are really challenged on health care?”
Perry Bacon discussed the ad in the context of other candidates’ healthcare pitches. Jill Zuckman talked about the ad in the context of taking on Hillary Clinton. Matthews repeatedly asked whether the ad would “work,” by which he meant, win support from voters.
It didn’t occur to any of them to even question Giuliani’s central claim, better yet point out that it’s completely wrong.
As for digging into the policy details a little more, Ezra did a handful of good posts on the subject yesterday, but included a gem last night when he noted the circumstances of Giuliani’s life-saving cancer treatment.
…Giuliani’s case for the superiority of our “free market” health care system goes something like this: While on health insurance provided by New York state, he was treated, using a surgery developed by Europeans, for prostate cancer, a disease that most commonly afflicts those covered by the federal government’s single-payer health care system. Take that, Europe/national health insurance.
Yep, Giuliani is that clueless.
In an effective political system, this would be a fairly big deal. A leading candidate produces an ad (one of a small number created by the campaign) with an obvious falsehood. If reporters cared half as much about this as haircuts, cackles, and cleavage, the process might actually function.