Truth Index: Don't Rush Me

After publishing the first half PolitiFact (PF) ruling results, it’s come time for more breakdown of the detail, and as I accomplished that I came across an “amusing” error I had made: I accidentally classified Rush Limbaugh as a Democrat! Oh woes me! So that’s been fixed. He only had one Pants on Fire ruling for the first half of 2012, but it did slightly affect the Truth Index.

Here’s how it breaks down by “source”—starting with the President/VP, the congress, the governors, the states and local governments, as well as advocacy groups, PACs and the media, and includes the overall Truth Index (here's the one for first quarter of 2012). “Others” includes former officials, blogs, chain e-mails and websites. A new category has been added called “Candidates (other than President)” as we have more and more of them due to the beginning of the 2012 election campaign. All officials I’ve categorized are “sitting”: in the case of presidential (I’d say ex-presidential but I don’t want to incur the wrath of Ron Paul fans) candidates like Ron Paul and Rick Perry, they are included in the categories of their “sitting” positions, congressman and governor.

Click to enlarge:  Groups (PACs etc) have a far lower Truth Index (-43) than individuals (-12) .

The following is a further breakdown of the pie chart, showing Democrats and Republicans. As can be seen the “local” category is now almost exactly even between Democrats and Republicans, whereas for the first quarter I showed a Republican advantage. The difference in the “local” Truth Index you’ve seen in earlier posts (as far as number of rulings) is that the chart indicates local politicians only, but there are also local issues covered by almost every source category which was what my earlier posts were about.

Click to enlarge:  FIRST HALF 2012: Only 3 rulings on Democrat governors made for the lowest Truth Index.

The senators and governors having more positive rulings than the other positions seems to be holding. The senators’ longer terms and their proverbial meaning of being “the eldest and wisest” (although let’s remember the word senator is from the same root as “senile” ha ha!) may have something to do with their being more “truthier” when subjected to the Truth-o-Meter. I posted something earlier on the predominantly Republican governors as far as who was the lowest on the Truth Index (Scott Walker of Wisconsin) but relatively speaking as a group they are much more “truthier” than their political counterparts.  

Next up, PolitiFact states or maybe PolitiFact writers?