Lil White Lies Extra: Subjectively Objective

Every few days I check the PolitiFact Bias "Research" page for that totally objective, non-biased, scientific proof to end all proofs of PolitiFact's (PF) liberal bias. PolitiFact Bias’ founder Bryan White must have noticed at his StatCounter page, so he served me up this little clue:

The first PolitiFact Bias research project will suggest that all "Pants on Fire" ratings are unfair and the result of a subjective determination by the responsible PolitiFact teams. [For example,] Pat Boone's statement was neither false nor ridiculously false in any non-subjective sense. It was at least somewhat accurate when considered objectively.

In other words, it sounds like he’s going to make his own ruling determination on a group (probably all Pants on Fire statements uttered by Republicans) of PF Pants on Fire rulings as to whether or not they are really a “ridiculous claim”. But just reading Bryan’s example leads me only to conclude that he is making his own subjective judgment (“suggest that all ‘Pants on Fire’ ratings are unfair”) under a false moniker of objectivity.

Pants on Fire is PolitiFact’s “signature”, the “flagship” of its brand. Sinking the Pants on Fire flagship could do it pretty heavy damage although it’s likely not to destroy the fleet. But unless Bryan can present his findings in a truly scientific manner , maybe even get them peer reviewed neutrally, he won’t even be rocking the boat.

If he cherry picks the rulings or does only Republicans, then he will be open to charges of bias as well (I can’t wait until he starts reviewing Democrat Pants on Fire rulings…if he does!).

In the meantime, as I’ve pointed out before, switching all those Pants on Fire rulings to False for both Democrats and Republicans would change the Truth Index some, but not a lot, and Democrats would still have a higher average. Here is the before and after when moving all Pants on Fire to False for all PolitiFact rulings through the end of 2011 (4,707):

(1) All PolitiFact rulings (4,707) through the end of 2011 by Truth-o-Meter and Affiliation.

(2) Same as above, only with Pants on Fire moved to False (the "gray" turns red, and the Truth Index is re-computed).

As can be seen in the above charts, by "removing" Pants on Fire the overall Truth Index is moved up 4 points from -13 to -9.  The Democrats move up 2 points (from 1 to 3) and the Republicans go from -23 to -18.  You could look at it this way:  with Pants on Fire, the Republican Truth Index was about 77% less "truthier" than the overall Truth Index.  Without Pants on Fire, it's about 100% less truthier.  The flattening effect on the Truth Index overall average still makes the Republicans appear relatively less truthful even though their Truth Index has improved.

But there might be a more beneficial effect when Bryan determines that all Republican Pants on Fire should be True or Mostly True and all Democrat Pants on Fire should remain Pants on Fire through his objective, scientific analysis. As I'm being cynical, I might say NOT (!) here except for the first part. Because, like what he already hinted at with the Pat Boone claim, there’s a strong possibility that will be the outcome of his so-called research.  I will be "staying tuned" on that.