Philosophy of Lying in Ponds

In a healthy democratic system, political decisions by politicians and voters should be made on the merits of the issues, and not for any other reason. Partisanship is one factor which damages the political process; there are others (apathy, money, etc.). Lying in Ponds chooses to focus on partisanship.
One of the ingredients necessary for good decision-making is the availability of relatively unbiased information and analysis. Political pundits should be able to provide independent analysis of the issues of the day that will allow politicians and voters to make better decisions. Eric Alterman's book, Sound and Fury : The Making of the Punditocracy, does an excellent job of explaining the powerful influence exerted by major pundits on the insular culture of Washington.
Turning away from a tradition of strongly partisan newspapers in the 19th century, major American newspapers have since chosen to pursue objectivity in their reporting, and independence from partisan interests in their commentary and analysis (Alterman's book examines the history of this transformation -- his opinion is that American journalism has been damaged by worshipping at the altar of objectivity).
Political columnists for major American newspapers have therefore been expected to be independent, which presumably implies that they are not overtly or covertly writing on behalf of a political party.
Although columnists claim to be independent, they shouldn't be expected to be politically neutral. It is natural and reasonable that most pundits have developed political philosophies which lead them to favor one party over another.
However, Lying in Ponds tries to draw a fundamental distinction between ordinary party preference and partisanship. A partisan pundit is one whose opinions nearly always break down along party lines. When two people agree on everything, it's pretty certain that only one is doing the thinking. 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.
It's easy to confuse ideological bias with partisan bias. While liberals are usually Democrats and conservatives are usually Republicans, a pundit who is truly committed to ideas will frequently find themselves criticizing their favorite party. Christopher Hitchens and William Safire are examples of the type.
Even if a pundit happened to genuinely agree with one party on almost all substantive policy issues, a major part of the political process hinges on the character of the people who participate in it. Any human trait -- courage, humility, intelligence, cowardice, hypocrisy, stupidity -- is easily found in both parties, and an independent pundit could not write honestly about the political process without noticing that.
Lying in Ponds is an attempt to quantify and analyze partisanship in the American punditocracy. Lying in Ponds believes that non-partisanship is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for constructive punditry. The views of pundits who are excessively partisan cannot be taken seriously (like advertising), because their ulterior motives or uncontrolled biases are certain to frequently contaminate their judgements. But a lack of partisanship does not necessarily make a pundit worth reading.
Partisan punditry amounts to a kind of false advertising if it is not acknowledged, since all major pundits purport to be independent. It also violates the spirit of newspaper policies which separate content and advertising -- partisan columns amount to free advertising for political parties. Most importantly, partisan pundits make rational political decision-making more difficult by contributing another source of distortion rather than illumination to the political debate.
Lying in Ponds itself attempts to be completely non-partisan. Democratic and Republican biases will be evaluated in exactly the same way.