Paul Krugman, who, when the last grain of observable truth tumbles into the sea is the one I trust to accurately note the event, wonders why Rudy Giuliani’s habit of lying is not a larger story told by the media.

Mr. Giuliani has a habit of saying things, on issues that range from health care to national security, that are demonstrably untrue.  Read more 

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” — Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

The National Fanny Cyst Erupts:  Read more 

Down at the end of yesterday’s Froom is an item he found over at US News:

“Current and former Bush administration communications officials tell the US News Political Bulletin that they now believe they relied too heavily on traditional media and the White House press corps to get out the President’s message about the broader war on terrorism and the booming economy. ’We didn’t use the new tools of communication’ like the Internet, blogs and mobile technology, said a former key official. As a result, added another official, the President’s message was filtered through the mainstream press which eventually got bored with the story and stopped reporting the President’s repetitive messages. ’You’ve got to use the new tools. They can reach far more people than TV or the papers,’ said an administration official. ’A video on the Internet or some blogging can reach millions and we should have played with that much more,’ said the official. White House insiders, however, dismissed the complaints, mostly from former communications officials, claiming that they have worked with bloggers and non-traditional media but that the tide has turned against them.”

How many ways can you find that this statement is not just off-base, but in typical “Bushian” fashion is 180 degrees away from reality? We’d have found what Bush was saying believable if we’d read it on a blog? If I was a rightwing blogger I’d be pissed, enraged and heartbroken at being so dissed.

No, anonymous “administration official.” The “mainstream press” reported your lies just fine. And over and over again, tragically, to the point where there are still measurable numbers of Americans not confined to institutions for the mentally incapacitated who think that we’re killing Iraqis to pay them back for 9/11. And that “booming economy”? Please, my eyes hurt enough already. Somehow sending our manufacturing capability overseas in exchange for part-time, no-benefits, no-security jobs in service industries would somehow improve life? And the former “breadbasket of the world” is now so hard up we have to import both pet and human food contaminated with poison in order to make more money? This is what you mean by “booming” perhaps?

Yeah, I’ll believe that if I read it in a blog rather than the NYT or WaPo.  Read more 

Take all the time you need to answer. (Or is there some third possibility?) Sheryl Gay Stolberg does a little group teabagging. This quote from extremely well paid OMB hack and Texan (or vice versa) Clay Johnson is especially picquant:

“I said, ‘How in the world can you be considered a liar by some?’ ” Mr. Johnson said, recounting a conversation with Mr. Bush. “I mean, there are bumper stickers about lying. It’s just incredible.’

Let me try to help you out, Clay.  Read more 

This seems to be the day for Cheap Little Republican Sleazeballs to be getting their long overdue comeuppance for breathtaking lapses from anything resembling proper behavior. Besides our oklahoma judge we now have Bernie Kerik, the only person I know of whom it can be said that Michael “Skeletor” Jerkoff Chertoff is demonstrably better than:

A year and a half after his Homeland Security nomination sank over ethics questions, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty Friday to charges he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in gifts while he was a top city official.  Read more