Rudy Hasn't Made Any Friends In Britain

My friends, the real Rudy is finally starting to get out, the information has even made it across the pond to the United Kingdom. Michael Tomasky writes for the Guardian and nailed Giuliani in spectacular form, he is....George Bush with brains.

From The Guardian:

People of Britain: congratulations are in order. You have now joined ferret owners, sidewalk artists, hot dog vendors, publicly funded attorneys for poor people, low-income community college students, museum curators, a couple of innocent black men shot dead by the police, the sections of the New York City charter governing rules of succession to the mayoralty and, of course, Hillary Clinton, as objects of Rudy Giuliani's demagoguery and wrath.

You may by now have heard the story. In a radio ad that his campaign prepared for New Hampshire voters, Giuliani tells listeners that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and goes on to say: "My chance of surviving cancer - and thank God I was cured of it - in the United States: 82%. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44% under socialised medicine."

The numbers are false. The actual five-year survival rate in Britain is 74%, which is still lower than America's, but obviously high enough for the figure not to have constituted fodder for a campaign commercial. (Even the remaining, much smaller difference, is largely explained by more widespread screening in the US, which catches many more incidents of prostate cancer that are non-lethal).

Yet when Rudy's campaign was confronted with the truth behind his false numbers, he stubbornly continued the charade. Much like Bush Jr, his refusal to give ground in light of facts is astonishing. He has also had lots of practice being Mayor here for eight goddamn years.

So he sticks to the 44% even though it is really 74% and despite being called out for relying on "socialized medicine" here with NYC's health care plan, he staggers on with the ego that fights to be bigger than New York itself.

Yes Mr.Tomasky, Britain does have to take heed of this dangerous man. He is George Bush with brains and it scares the hell out of many of us back here on this side of the pond. As a New Yorker I've known only too well.

Giuliani Lies About His Cancer, Relied On Public Health After All

Republicans generally get their facts wrong when trying to make a point that the "free" market works better than anything the government can put together. They use conservative think (I use this word loosely) tanks to cite numbers, figures and charts to show that they are right and Democrats are wrong. Too bad that the think tanks are wrong to begin with, such as when Rudy claimed that people survive prostate cancer in higher numbers here as opposed to Britain where they use socialized medicine.

Now that can be chalked up as a simple mistake by Rudy for not having the good sense to read publications that actually deal with reality. Simple men, simple.....you get the message. Yet if you yourself had prostate cancer, dealt with the repercussions and survived I would think that a survivor would know their own personal medical history (I certainly do with regards to my knee surgery) better than anyone else. Well, that isn't true either.

From Salon:

The Giuliani ad's problems go well beyond a pair of phony numbers. Among the blogging wonks scrutinizing the relevant health data is Ezra Klein, who asked a separate but penetrating question: "Wouldn't it be interesting to find out if the gold-standard care Giuliani got during his prostate cancer came while he was on government-provided health insurance?"

As Klein surmised, Giuliani was serving as mayor and participating in a city of New York health plan when his doctor informed him that his prostate biopsy had come up positive. The coverage he enjoyed -- which resembles the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan -- permits all city employees, from trash haulers and subway clerks up to the mayor himself, to select from a variety of insurance providers, and it is not much different from the reform proposals adopted by his nemesis Hillary Clinton.

In the spring of 2000, when Giuliani learned that he had cancer and abruptly dropped out of the Senate race against Sen. Clinton, he was enrolled as a member of GHI, one of the two gigantic HMO groups that provide care for most city workers (the other is known as HIP). He underwent surgery and radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital, a prestigious institution that participates in the GHI plan, which means that his costs were largely underwritten by city taxpayers.

Now wait a second, isn't that similar to "socialized medicine" that Rudy frequently decries? GHI and HIP help hundreds of thousands of city workers here in New York, as it did for the man that now slams programs like it. If this is how he treats those that help saved his life, I wonder how nice he'll be to the rest of us?