Pundit Boxscore for Thursday 1 January 2004

PARTISAN PUNDITRY 2003: In the 2002 partisanship rankings, Paul Krugman easily lapped the field of fellow columnists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. After the addition of a large group of syndicated columnists to the roster this year, Mr. Krugman has some company at the top of the charts.

With a controversial Republican administration and Republican control of both houses of Congress, it seems likely that Democratic partisans would be energized by opportunities for criticism, systematically increasing their partisanship scores. Despite that expectation, Republican pundit Ann Coulter has maintained the lead in the 2003 Lying in Ponds partisanship rankings through a series of rants which attempt to convince the reader that the political world is very simple to understand -- all liberals are bad, all Democrats are bad, and all Republicans are good. None of Ms. Coulter's 50 columns this year came close to contradicting that formula. The simple methods used here cannot quantify the nastiness of some of Ms. Coulter's attacks -- in one August column she wished that Al Gore and Gray Davis had been killed in Vietnam: "Both were veterans, after a fashion, of Vietnam, which would make a Gore-Davis presidential ticket the only compelling argument yet in favor of friendly fire." For more on Ms. Coulter's problems, see the Spinsanity topics page, where there is a section devoted to documentation of her manipulative rhetoric and inaccuracies.

Paul Krugman's partisanship score was slightly lower than last year, but the extreme partisanship of his columns was essentially unchanged. Mr. Krugman has written two columns each week for The New York Times for four full years, including the final year of the Clinton administration, covering topics from elections in France to the space program. In response to readers' comments, I've tediously gone through all 382 of Mr. Krugman's Times columns, looking for "harsh criticisms . . directed against Democrats", but have been simply unable to find a column which consists mainly of substantive and unambiguous criticism directed at Bill Clinton or Al Gore or Terry McAuliffe or Tom Daschle or Al Sharpton or Howard Dean or Gray Davis or any other Democrat. That distinguishes Mr. Krugman from fellow left-leaning pundits such as Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Michael Kinsley, Thomas Oliphant, Mary McGrory, Helen Thomas, and even Robert Scheer and Molly Ivins, all of whom have found occasions to substantively criticize their own party in only the last couple of years. How many "crossover columns" would an ideologically strident but truly independent columnist write out of 382 opportunities? I don't know, but certainly far more than zero. Mr. Krugman is clearly a gifted economist and writer, but for whatever reason, his columns have scrupulously observed party boundaries, finding unlimited time to discuss Thomas White and Trent Lott but no time at all for Marc Rich or Al Sharpton.

Just behind Mr. Krugman in the rankings were two fairly similar columnists, Robert Scheer and Molly Ivins. Neither pundit wrote a substantive crossover column in 2003, although Mr. Scheer came close with some vigorous praise of the Reagans and criticism of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Both columnists share with Ann Coulter the infamy of their own section on Spinsanity topics page.

A little further back are a cluster of moderately partisan columnists -- Daniel Henninger, Mona Charen, Michael Kinsley, the late Robert Bartley, Maureen Dowd and Cal Thomas. Each of these columnists demonstrated an ability to occasionally write an entire column devoted to criticism of their own party or praise for the other.

Last year's final rankings had WSJ OpinionJournal columnist Collin Levey second in partisanship only to Paul Krugman. After going that entire year without a single positive Democratic reference, her columns this year (they stopped in August) were very different -- only a single Democratic reference, and it was positive. Clearly I made the charge of partisanship against Ms. Levey last year on the basis of insufficient data, and I sincerely apologize for that. Ms. Levey writes mostly about cultural issues; I've since taken the approach that Lying in Ponds will attempt to evaluate only pundits who focus on politics rather than local, international or cultural issues. Last year's third place columnist, Claudia Rosett, writes mostly about international affairs, so she was not evaluated this year.

I'm looking forward to another year of exploring the issue of partisanship, with some roster changes and the presidential election sure to keep things interesting. Upon which political enemies will Ann Coulter wish death and destruction this year? Will Paul Krugman be able to write another 100 columns without a single contrary note? Will editors at The New York Times and The Washington Post begin to insist that their columnists disclose potential conflicts-of-interest (George Will) and honestly acknowledge blatant manipulation of quotes (Charles Krauthammer and Maureen Dowd)? Stay tuned . .