NYT busts Giuliani on bogus stats

The New York Times has an impressively critical article on Rudy Giuliani's misleading use of statistics in today's edition. Here's how it begins:

In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.

Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was “the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994.” In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York “had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years.” When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”

All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong. And while, to be sure, all candidates use misleading statistics from time to time, Mr. Giuliani has made statistics a central part of his candidacy as he campaigns on his record.

For instance, another major American city claims to have reduced crime every year since 1994: Chicago. New York averaged 1,514 murders a year during the three decades before Mr. Giuliani took office; it did not record more than 1,800 homicides until 1980. And 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.

Where was this kind of coverage when President Bush misused statistics to sell his tax and budget plans starting during campaign 2000? (see All the President's Spin for more) Remember, back in October 2002, Dana Milbank's similar piece about President Bush's dissembling in the Washington Post drew an extremely harsh reaction. The rest of the press, needless to say, did not follow his lead.

Here are a few possible explanations:

(a) Rudy's bluster invites more critical coverage -- he seems like more of a dissembler than the supposedly straight-talking Bush;
(b) Bush's statistics were carefully parsed to be half-true, making them harder to debunk within the framework of supposedly "objective" journalism (this is the argument we make in ATPS), while Rudy's are often just wrong;
(c) Reporters are becoming more skeptical about the use of statistics of the Bush administration;
(d) The political environment is pushing reporters toward more critical coverage of Republicans;
(e) All of the above.

What do you think?

Comments

I wonder if part of it is because he was talking about New York and the Times has direct, unmediated experience with what he was lying about. Maybe it's about confidence.

[yellowdogD]

You can bet (d) is not a correct answer, as the NY Times article mentioned in this post is the first evidence I've seen of critical reporting about Republicans.