Paul Krugman: #1 Most Partisan Columnist in U.S.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Lying in Ponds is an attempt to encourage vigorous, independent commentary in the American punditocracy by quantifying and analyzing partisanship. Lying in Ponds tries to draw a fundamental distinction between ordinary party preference and excessive partisanship. The presence of an excessive partisan bias transforms journalism into advertising, too distorted and unreliable to be useful in any serious political debate. Political parties are a healthy, essential part of American democracy; excessive partisanship is not. The methods used here are an attempt to quantify only partisanship, and are not intended as a more general guide to the quality of a columnist.
Lying in Ponds currently tracks the Democratic and Republican biases of a selection of regular political columnists from various sources, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal, and the Washington Post.
Final Rankings for Partisanship:
2002 : #1 Paul Krugman
2003: #1 Ann Coulter, #2 Paul Krugman
2004: #1 Ann Coulter, #2 Paul Krugman
2005: #1 Paul Krugman
2007 : #1 Ann Coluter, #2 Paul Krugman (tied with Joe Conason)
2008: #1 Paul Krugman
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Lying in Ponds is a website that tracks and ranks the Democratic and Republican biases of a selection of regular political columnists. The top graph above for 2007 shows that Paul Krugman is the most partisan liberal columnist and Ann Coulter is the most partisan conservative columnist.
Lying in Ponds tries to draw a fundamental distinction between ordinary party preference and excessive partisanship. The presence of an excessive partisan bias transforms journalism into advertising, too distorted and unreliable to be useful in any serious political debate. Political parties are a healthy, essential part of American democracy; excessive partisanship is not. The methods used here are an attempt to quantify only partisanship, and are not intended as a more general guide to the quality of a columnist.
For example, an analysis of columns in 2007 by Ann Coulter shows that she has had 463 negative comments about Democrats, and only 10 positive comments (about a 46:1 ratio). Paul Krugman has had 603 negative comments so far this year about Republicans, and only 31 positive comments (almost a 20:1 ratio). In comments about Republicans, Coulter’s positive comments outnumber negative comments by about 2.5 to 1, and Krugman’s positive comments about outnumber negative comments by about 3.5 to 1 (see bottom chart, click to enlarge).
According to Lying in Ponds, “A partisan pundit is one whose opinions nearly always break down along party lines. Assuming that it’s unlikely that a partisan columnist is actually formulating the party platform, then the partisan columnist’s opinions must therefore derive from allegiance to the favored party or hostility to the other party rather than from independent thought. The views of pundits who are excessively partisan cannot be taken seriously, because their ulterior motives or uncontrolled biases are certain to frequently contaminate their judgements.”
Nothing has changed. With Krugman, he's still the same partisan hack he's always been, carefully following the democratic party line of the day and attacking Republicans. Actually, I take that back, Coulter has changed. She attacks Republicans all the time. Krugman's grift remains the same with nary an independent thought in 20 years. Just partisan red meat.