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Now the WaPo takes a swipe at Rudy
posted at 6:04 am on July 8, 2007 by see-dubya
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Hot on the heels of the New York Times innocently wondering whether Fred Thompson’s attractive and accomplished wife Jeri may be seen by “values voters” as could succesfully be tagged by the Times as a bimbo, here comes the WaPo looking to deflate Rudy’s star accomplishment with a bit of rather controversial science:

Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani’s tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the “New York miracle” was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.

The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States. It offers a unifying new neurochemical theory for fluctuations in the crime rate, and it is based on studies linking children’s exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives.

This theory is like the perfect storm for the Left–not only does it denigrate Rudy specifically, but it also impugns law and order approaches generally even offers a behavioral, neurochemical-level explanation for criminal behavior that does an end-run around conventional notions of individual responsibility. Your Honor, I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, but it’s not my fault because the solder in my crib contained lead: