A number of months ago, Rachel Maddow mock-implored, 'Please make Rudy the win the nomination....pull-e-e--e-a-a-s-e....'

Finally, a Republican candidate is getting the reputation of being a liar and exaggerator. Gore and Kerry both had to go through this. It's nice to see a turnaround.

Reading the Times piece, Rudy's cherry picking of facts doesn't seem to quite measure up to the whoppers told by Barak and Hilary. What's more interesting is Rudy suddenly being in the cross-hairs of the Times and most of the rest of the mainstream media.

Oh, silly you. Don't you know that "9/11 changed everything?"

Among other things, it made blatant lies a-okay.

Come on, Salon; help me out here.

At the end of the Times piece on this, Luntz says he doesn't think Rudy's lying will hurt him politically. First off, brilliant to include a Republican pollster with ties to Giuliani as the final impartial word on this. Bravo. Even worse, why no mention of Al Gore? It wasn't that long ago that a presidential candidate got tarred as a "serial exaggerator" for far less egregious infractions. Rudy is a serial liar, which when coupled with the fact he was also a serial adulterer, could inflict real damage on him. He's the man of steel and honor, the only one we can trust. His distortions directly contradict this, which is why if the press really starts going after him, he might just be toast.

We don't need no stinkin facts.

Nothing to see here. Sadly.

Ever since the GOP took power with Reagan, the party has made a point of demeaning the truth, and proposing that their triumphalist fantasies are somehow more important than the truth.

Giuliani is simply the final evolution of this tendency.

...exactly how many firefighters died during your tenure because of a faulty radio, Mr. Giuliani?

Since when are facts a concern to the GOP?

Lies and fearmongering is the GOP's stock in trade. And NOBODY does fear and lies better.

People often make the same argument for fiction - that by reading made-up stories, we come to understand a deeper truth than just living can teach. And I have always agreed with that argument, actually. But that argument relies on the WILLING suspension of disbelief. So I'll be in favor of giving Giuliani a pass on his fictions when he starts labeling them as such, so we have the choice to suspend disbelief.

I know, it's truly impressive. Clearly Team Giuliani uses "details" in more of a New York fashion scene sense--details as shiny, distracting embellishments.

...this is truthiness in action!

Since Bush, the logic is "if we say it, it's true" and without the scrupulous oversight of an intellectually curious and consistently conscientious media, they get away with it.

I've said it before and it remains sadly true that the real culprits are not the liars. The real bad guys are those who allow the lies to go unchallenged.

I am frequently amazed at the number of people who asked "why haven't I read about that in the paper?" when I present another of the serial outrages being perpetrated by Bush and his pretenders.

Why, indeed?

If your word process crashes and wipes your hard drive when you try to save a document, the software industry will call it a "feature".

I have to give Rovian props to the Giuliani campaign for their innovative use of the word "details" in the place of any other term in the English language that might actually indicate veracity. I guarantee you there will be a block of voters impressed by his courageous use of details in the near future.