Politi-Score: "My Bad" Boehner

In my initial review of Eric Ostermeier’s article “Selection Bias? PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats” I deduced that he had used PolitiFact National statistics only. As a matter of uniformity, this was probably the most “scientific” way to do it. But because his total number of 511 statements still seemed a little low, and he did not come out and say that this was PolitiFact National, I puzzled over how I could determine it.

Since Speaker of the House John Boehner is from Ohio, I thought I might manually confirm his rulings. Indeed, he had some rulings by PolitiFact National and some by PolitiFact Ohio, here’s how his count worked out for 2010 when he received 21 PolitiFact rulings:

Boehner 2010	PF National	PF Ohio	Total
True	6	4	10
Mostly True	2	0	2
Half True	1	2	3
Barely True	1	0	1
False	3	2	5
Pants on Fire	0	0	0
Total	13	8	21

So right there (in emphasis), as Ostermeier noted, six Trues, two Mostly Trues, and one Half True. Yes, Ostermeier had compiled Boehner’s numbers for PolitiFact National only.

The issue raised for me was the way I had gathered my data for my “2,788 Reasons” series of posts. I accomplished the task by going to the “Other People and Groups” page of the PolitiFact.com website, and linking to each person, and then copying the numbers from the “Statements by Ruling” list. But the issue was that the “Statements by Ruling” do not tell you which PolitiFact group the ruling was done by, and there are some overlaps. The other politico I checked was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, since he is a representative from Virginia, and yes, he had one ruling done by PolitiFact Virginia.

To do this would mean going through each ruling individually, a huge task. However, I believe that any differences should be minimal. I have made the changes in my database for Ostermeier and Cantor. I plan to check a few more major players and make more adjustments if required.

As of today, 3/3/11, Boehner can't cry  because his Pants are on Fire. I cry because I can't tell from this what PF Ohio did.

Among Boehner’s rulings were three which were written, researched and edited by a combination of people from both PolitiFact National and PolitiFact Ohio. This raises an interesting question as well: if PolitiFact National is “training” PolitiFact Ohio’s writers, researchers, and editors in the process of these rulings ( that is what this appears to be, since it occurred at the time PolitiFact Ohio came on board) how should this considered in relation to any bias allegations, and what is the relationship now?

In Boehner’s case, Ostermeier sort of did him a disservice by appearing to place him in the same category as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and the insinuation was he could have had Pants on Fire rulings since Ostermeier did not say which version of “False” Boehner received. But the fact is Boehner has never received one Pants on Fire ruling; his current Politi-Score is an admirable 51.

In the meantime, here is a pie chart of how the statements are divided among the PolitiFact: PolitiFacts National and Florida, even with adjustments, dominate the rulings.  Soon I should have more on the state PolitiFacts in regard to the Politi-Score.  Stay tuned.

The other states (excluding Florida) do about a quarter of all PolitiFact rulings.