Lying Liars: The Winner Is…

Or: Chris Mooney Should Really Learn to Use Graphics More

He’s got a great piece (“Reality Bites Republicans“) up over at The Nation on the rise of fact checkers, the perception that they’re bend-over-backward (or forward…) “even handed” in the face of blatant falsehood asymmetry, and long-term analysis of results from PolitiFact.

But he also gives use some Brand New Data analyzing the Washington Post Fact Checker column, pulled together with his research assistant Aviva Meyer.

Here’s how he presents it:

Republicans got nearly three times as many “four Pinocchio” ratings as Democrats (thirty-three versus twelve), according to our analysis. They were also overrepresented in the “three Pinocchio” category (forty-two versus thirty-one) and the “two Pinocchio” category (seventy-six versus fifty-five), the most frequent category used.

But, interestingly, this trend did not hold up in the “one Pinocchio” category, in which Democrats predominated (forty versus twenty-six).

Here’s how I present it (click for larger):

Everybody fudges. And all politicians lie, including Democrats. But matters of degree do matter, no?

The Washington Post is just a bunch of east-coast liberal media elitists, of course (facts nothwithstanding), so we can ignore this.

Cross-posted at Asymptosis.