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November 30, 2007

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.

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