We have already covered Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani’s tendency to ignore truth in favor of pandering and lying. While we expect a certain amount of pandering from all politicians it becomes a problem when it includes switching stands on long held beliefs. More important we expect, if not honesty about their positions and beliefs, honesty about facts and details. Especially when those facts are something that can be checked and proven.

It shows a certain disdain for the truth to lie about known events to make political points. It takes an absolute disregard for the truth to continue telling those lies after being called out for them. Yet that is exactly what Rudy Giuliani’s campaign has been doing while attacking the Democrats’ health care policies. Rudy has a radio ad out in New Hampshire where he makes the false claim that survival rates for prostate cancer are 82% here and only 44% under socialized medicine in England.

This statement has come under intense scrutiny because it is completely false. It is a bold faced lie meant to slander the Democrats and pander to the anti-children’s health care crowd. This by itself would not be a story, in fact I was so uninterested in writing about yet another Republican lie I have waited about 3 days to write this. Here is the thing, whether or not they new before that the numbers were wrong and misleading they absolutely know now. The Washington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times, FactCheck.org, and on and on have all voiced the truth. A New Hampshire Health care group, New Hampshire for Health Care, which represents more than 60,000 residents is even demanding the lying ad be taken down.

So here is the story in this that finally got me to write about it. Rudy Giuliani is refusing to take down the ad and continues to repeat the false numbers, even after being caught in the lie. The only possible reason for this is because they still think they can win political points using it. This baffled me at first because I didn’t see how telling a known lie, and being branded a liar, could possibly help in the polls. Then it occurred to me, it will help because the people he is pandering to do not care that he is lying to them.

For all their talk about “family values” and Christian morals the fundamentalist conservatives of this nation could care less that one of their top presidential candidates is lying to them. The only thing they care about is that they say the right things when they lie. You know that they hate the gays, that they don’t trust womenfolk to make their own medical decisions, and that socialized medicine is the devil. Crazy shit like that. Reality and facts are just momentary inconveniences that can be ignored whenever they become inconvenient.

It really bothers me that the Republican constituency is so unconcerned with honesty that this kind of behavior is acceptable from their candidates. This is the kind of issue that should become a campaign issue, you know like Barack Obama’s name, or Hillary’s cleavage, or Edwards’ haircut. Except unlike those three silly issues that got way too much media attention, the honesty and character of a candidate actually matters. Well, at least it does to the liberals. Honesty may not be a family value, but it is a liberal value, and we need to demand that our next president is someone we can trust.

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