Pundit Boxscore for Thursday 12 February 2004

CHECK MY WORK: Beginning last week, the daily boxscore lists partisan references in a different way, hopefully one which will make it easier for interested readers to see exactly which references have been evaluated as positive, negative or neutral. Here's the old way, which simply listed each type of reference in order:

Robert J. Samuelson Washington Post

Dishonest Budget Talk 11 February 2004

1043

14

2D+: Democratic, Treasury secretary Robert Rubin 3D-: Democrats, Democrats, Democrats 2R+: Republican, Newt Gingrich 5R-: Bush administration, White House, administration, Bush, Republicans 2R=

And now here's the new way, which lists the references by paragraph, using bold (positive) and italics (negative) and blue (Democratic) and red (Republican) to indicate the type of reference:

Robert J. Samuelson Washington Post

Dishonest Budget Talk 11 February 2004

1043

14

2D+,3D-,2R+,5R-,2R= The most: Bush administration, White House It will: Bush, administration Democrats commit: Democrats, Bush Budget talk: Democrats, Bush To cure: Democratic, Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, Republican, Newt Gingrich This sobering: Republicans, Democrats

So "Bush administration" and "White House" in the Samuelson paragraph which begins with "The most" were evaluated as negative Republican references:

The most revealing factoid about the Bush administration's budget is this: After scouring the entire $2.4 trillion of federal spending, the White House found 65 programs that it deemed so unneeded or ineffective that they should be eliminated. How much do these programs cost? About $4.9 billion. Although that's a lot of money, it's only 0.2 percent of federal spending -- two-tenths of 1 percent. This qualifies as an aggressive assault on government spending?

A few readers have e-mailed me in the past to question my evaluation of specific references. In some cases I had made a mistake or just agreed with the reader's point and changed the evaluation; in others I've disagreed and stuck with my original decision. I welcome these kinds of comments -- evaluating columns is subjective and sometimes difficult. Feel free to chip in your two cents . .