Last week, Rudy Giuliani made one of the more startling mistakes of the presidential campaign to date. Talking to reporters, on camera, Giuliani said he was at Ground Zero “as often, if not more” than the rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers who spent a year sifting through human remains and rubble. He added, “So in that sense, I’m one of them.”

Insulted workers were deeply offended, causing Giuliani to backpedal, but the damage was already done. At the time, Atrios noted that “Giuliani is making an empirical claim here which could be verified with a little reporting.” Good idea. To its credit, the NYT follows up today with the truth.

A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.

In other words, here’s the reality: Giuliani spent about 10 hours a month bringing celebrities and dignitaries to Ground Zero, while rescue workers and cleanup crews put in about 400 hours at the site. In Giuliani’s self-aggrandizing mind, the two are practically identical.

Honestly, this is the kind of gaffe that should effectively end Giuliani’s presidential ambitions. He’s running on an all-9/11, all-the-time platform, and he’s been caught lying about it.