Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false. In fact, there’s very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British, which is amazing given the fact that Britain spends only 41 percent as much on health care per person as we do.It's all good, trenchant stuff, but then Krugman says this:
Anyway, comparisons with Britain have absolutely nothing to do with what the Democrats are proposing.
But here’s what I don’t understand: Why isn’t Mr. Giuliani’s behavior here considered not just a case of bad policy analysis but a character issue?All true, but as Bob Somerby would point out, absolutely to be expected given today's political discourse in the USA.
For better or (mostly) for worse, political reporting is dominated by the search for the supposedly revealing incident, in which the candidate says or does something that reveals his true character. And this incident surely seems to fit the bill....
By rights, then, Mr. Giuliani’s false claims about prostate cancer — which he has, by the way, continued to repeat, along with some fresh false claims about breast cancer — should be a major political scandal. As far as I can tell, however, they aren’t being treated that way.
To be fair, there has been some news coverage of the prostate affair. But it’s only a tiny fraction of the coverage received by Hillary’s laugh and John Edwards’s haircut.
And much of the coverage seems weirdly diffident. 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.
Let's just have a quick reminder of The Rules of American Political Journalism, shall we?
- Only Democrats have character issues. All Republicans are authentic and all Democrats are phonies. All facts and non-facts are to be fit into this overarching narrative.
- The United States has nothing to improve, and anyone who suggests otherwise is an effete, America-hating librul (see Rule One re: character issues).
- Truth cannot be determined. All that anyone can know is that Republicans say one thing and Democrats another (but you can bet that you can't trust what those Dems say; see Rule One re: phonies).
- Even if truth could be determined, it's not the job of journalists to determine or report it. All journalism is celebrity journalism, and based therefore on gossip.
- Policy is not interesting or relevant and does not exist.
- There are only free-market capitalism and totalitarian communism. Any deviation from the former is the latter.
Cross-posted at The Vanity Press.
