The NY Times v. Giuliani [versus me, and I lose]

Michael Cooper of the NY Times comes out swinging in an attempt to debunk Giuliani's use of misleading statistics. 

[RED-FACED CAVEAT, OR, IN WHICH I AM REMINDED OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "SAVE" AND "SAVE AS DRAFT":  OK, this post had escaped into the wild before it had achieved full half-baked status.  Eventually I found the Chicago PD Annual Reports with their steady decrease in "Index Crimes" and it even dawned on me that the NY murder rate ticked up from 1998 to 2000, so that by my own criteria I was making no sense. 

While trying to figure out if I even had anything in this post worth salvaging I noticed that I had "saved" the first draft by the simple expedient of publishing it, and that the hawk-like Foo Bar had noted my own Fubar, so here we are.  I am going to leave this post up as a lesson in humility but as debunkings go, this was pretty much an auto-debunk.

Well - this can at least be used as an open thread.  We now resume our previously scheduled ranting after the break...]

Unfortunately, the Times' subscription to "Google" seems to have lapsed with unfortunate (but not unsurprising! results):

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.   

I think it is great that the local boosters are not being shy about Chi-town but that is a bummer of an example and a dreadful first choice.  After 45 seconds with Google I am looking at this chart which shows a clear uptick in homicides per 100,000 in both Chicago and Los Angeles after 2000.  [Or here - homicides up 5.5% from 2000 to 2001.]

There may be some other city the Times can find to make their point, but Chicago is not a great choice.

It is true that the Chicago Police Dept, relying on the FBI Crime Index, has reported steady drops in "Index Crimes" from 1993 to the present.  (Taken together the 2002 and 2005 Annual Reports extend back to 1993).  But murder is considered to be the most accurately reported crime, and that does has not fallen consistently since 1994.  As to whether the Chicago Police Dept is managing the other numbers or discouraging the reporting of certain crimes in order to bolster their overall stats, who knows? 

Comments

[kim]

Statistics; once you've got them down you can do anything you like with them.
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[Foo Bar]

If we're squinting that hard looking for a flaw in the NYT piece, maybe we could squint at that graph even harder and note that murder in New York looks like it was up in '99 vs '98. We could even confirm that here (select "NYC police department" and "Violent crime rates"). Strictly speaking, the numbers are for "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter", but they look similar to those in the graph.

[bio mom]

Don't think this will matter much to the average American. It is perception that counts. They perceive Guiliani as strong, a crime fighter, and the savior of New York. That perception is unlikely to change because of someone's statistical analysis.

[kim]

And Romney's not the Saviour of Massachusetts?
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[Other Tom]

I had a statistics prof who said he could prove that sitting in the first three rows at burlesque shows causes baldness.

And a physics prof who actually did prove that if you dammed up the Bay of Fundy the moon would fall into the earth. Forty years on I'm still thinking about that one; I was never able to spot any flaw in his proof. Since I've forgotten all my math and physics I guess I'll believe it the rest of my life.

After further reflection on the GOP debate and CNN, I have concluded that at the very least the party should take the same approach the Dems do toward Fox News. Why go on CNN for a debate that includes no questions on Iraq, trade, marginal tax rates or anything else that matters? That was the worst exercise in juvenile trivialities I can imagine. Those people should be ashamed, and I suppose they probably are.

[Porchlight]

Those people should be ashamed, and I suppose they probably are.

The debate spin from the left appears to be "Republicans are complaining because they were made to answer hard questions." I'd like to think CNN is properly embarrassed by their inability to use Google, but I can never tell with the MSM - are they really that blinkered by their prejudices, or was it a purposeful attempt to stereotype Republicans? And which is worse?

[MayBee]

I'm disappointed in you, TM.
You should have thought longer about how you could salvage this post as not factually accurate, but still valid.

[Cecil Turner]

Since I've forgotten all my math and physics I guess I'll believe it the rest of my life.

There's my problem, in a nutshell. And while I'm impressed by Foo Bar's eagle eyesight (and quick trigger), it seems to me that anyone studying this chart for any length of time would have to come away being fairly impressed with the crime fighting in NY City. And while I'm not really a Rudy fan, far from being an effective hit-piece, it rather makes his case for him.

[Bbbbut . . . there's a bump in the graph RIGHT THERE!] {Dude, the trend is about as perfect as it gets.} [He's lying! There's a bump!] {There's a steady decrease in homicide, to levels < 1/3 of Chicago's . . . who's being "misleading" here?} [But the graph has a bump!] {Fine, describe the perfectly legitimate point of that graph in few enough words to work as a sound byte, and I'll allow as you have a point.}

[Foo Bar]

There's no question that Giuliani has an impressive record on crime reduction.

If this is now an open thread on the theme of factual errors by public figures, I wonder if anyone would want to defend this assertion by Karl Rove in a National Review piece.

Rove claims that President Bush inherited a situation at the start of his presidency with "out-of-control spending with discretionary domestic spending increasing 16 percent in the last fiscal year of his predecessor". Unless I'm misinterpreting something, this is wildly incorrect. The actual increase was less than half of that.

Here are the official numbers from the Congressional Budget Office:

See page seven ("Discretionary Outlays"). The third column has the Domestic totals. It is unclear whether Mr. Rove is referring to the increase from '99 to '00 or from '00 to '01, but in either case the increase was under 8%. From '99 to '00 it went from $277 billion to $298.5 billion, for an increase of 7.76%. From '00 to '01 it went from $298.5 billion to $320.7 billion, for an increase of 7.44%. And that's in raw dollars- it would be less if you corrected for inflation. Note also that the next page shows that domestic discretionary spending increased negligibly as a % of GDP.

[Foo Bar]

Sorry, bad budget data link. Here it is.

[Cecil Turner]

If this is now an open thread on the theme of factual errors by public figures . . .

Then, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky" is still the chart-topper.

No, by my reading the topic is our "independent" media and whether they can be trusted to fact-check political candidates (or whether--say it ain't so!--they allow their own political bias to color their analysis). And the available evidence suggests the latter as the only possible conclusion.

[TM]

Rove claims that President Bush inherited a situation at the start of his presidency with "out-of-control spending with discretionary domestic spending increasing 16 percent in the last fiscal year of his predecessor". Unless I'm misinterpreting something, this is wildly incorrect. The actual increase was less than half of that.

Rove is probably more familiar with the White House / OMB numbers, not the CBO version.

I spent five minutes with it and it was far from obvious that they were directly comparable. OTOH, I didn't see any obvious category that rose 16%, either.

Or, Rove may have had in mind a comparison with the final proposed Clinton budget that was never enacted but was sent over as a wish list and Campaign 2000 document (one goal was to show all the good things that could be done with the surplus in preference to Bush's boring tax cut).

Good luck.