Giuliani making up the numbers

The NYT on Friday has: "Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and Again"

It strikes me as a fairly honest piece; it doesn't have any of the "appear to contradict the facts" language that the Times, Post and others have used so much.

Some of the news isn't new -- Krugman has written on this as has Washingtonpost.com's factchecker, though some of that previous work focused only on one or a few specific incidents of Giuliani lying.

This article brings up even more. It does admit its lateness though, given that many of these quotes are not new: "In recent days, Mr. Giuliani seems to be taking greater care to be precise." Well, this article is still better late than never.

The other odd point on the timing is how the article comes after pressure from the Romney campaign and others to push this story. It's as if the NYT campaign coverage is waiting for others to tell them what to do. And that's not new: they were several days late in covering the Clinton-campaign-planted-a-question story, for example (NYT published Nov 12; the AP had the story on the evening on Nov 9; and the Scarlet & Black at Grinnell College broke the story earlier in the day on the 9th).

But all that aside, Friday's article is still one to celebrate.