Truth Index by Subject since 2011

In a previous post on the subject of guns, I had written a huge paragraph on the overlap of subject assignment, which I ended up taking out when I realized that all I have to do at the PolitiFact website is click the label link for the subject to get all the rulings. But it’s still easier to do it on a spreadsheet because it’s all on one page right in front of me.

Anyway, the top ten subjects by order of number of occurrences (i.e., because of that ubiquitous selection bias) are shown in the chart below: They constitute roughly one half (48%) of all the rulings for which I kept track of the subject, for all of 2011 and the first half of 2012, 1,405 rulings out of 2,923 total. The chart shows the subjects highest count to lowest (starting with “Economy” with 234 rulings, working down to “Environment” with 67 rulings). Then it shows the Truth Index for Democrats and Republicans for each subject with the Truth Index score labeling each bar.

Click to enlarge: On the subject "Federal Budget" Republicans calculated to a "zero" Truth Index.

The chart does not show the total breakdown or average for these top ten: of the 1,405 rulings, 843 (60%) were from Republicans and 488 (about 35%) were from Democrats, with the remaining 5% Independent, Non-Partisan or unknown. The Republicans had an overall Truth Index for these top ten subjects of negative 21.5 (compared to negative 24.1 for all 2,935 rulings), while the Democrats had a positive 4.4 for these top ten (compared to a negative 1 for all 2,935 rulings).

The conclusions: while the economy was the most covered subject, in terms of number of rulings and Truth Index divergence between Democrats and Republicans, healthcare was by far the worst and most lied-about subject, especially by Republicans. For the year 2011, healthcare was also Number 1, and I’m sure this continued trend has something to do with their keeping the public turned against that dreaded “Obamacare.”

You can also check my recent post of some of the more repeated statements on the topic of healthcare, as well as PolitiFact rulings for which FactCheck.Org reached the same conclusion.

The Republicans were ahead Truth-Index-wise of the Democrats two subjects, jobs and “candidate bio”. Job creation has been lackluster under Obama, and so there may be a little stretching of the truth on the topic of jobs on the part of Obama and other Democrats to make it seem better than it is. As the political campaigns for 2012 start to take shape, “candidate bio”—something said about the candidate's opponent, his background or history—has been getting more attention for fact-checking verificiation, and here it seems the Republicans are a wee bit more “truthier” than Democrats.

The largest divergence between Truth Indexes without considering count, however, was on the topic of energy. I filtered out three “underlying reasons” just looking at the statements which I labeled Drill (Baby Drill), Gas (prices), and Keystone (Pipeline). When I looked at the “affiliation” list after executing the filter for these three items, I didn’t have to do anything more: there were 25, and they were ALL Republican statements, with a combined Truth Index of very negative 66. One of my favorites was a Pants on Fire for a Florida senatorial candidate by the name of Dave Weldon who said that there was no wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—sort of sounds like someone saying Ulysses S. Grant isn’t buried in Grants Tomb. Or a False from PolitiFact Ohio for a statement by Representative Mike Dovilla that Obama’s policy on the Keystone Pipeline was thwarting the ability to (immediately!) reduce gas prices.

Other than that, my readers can reach their own conclusions.