Lying in Ponds

Reader Andrew Myers asks a good question in comments:

Maybe the difference in partisanship measured by these methods is real? My impression is that the Republican columnists have lowered their scores by criticizing the administration on grounds of either ideology or competence. Shouldn’t that show a real absence of partisanship? Whereas the Democratic columnists still resist the ample opportunities to criticize the performance of the Democrats. I don’t see the evidence that the apparent difference arises from an especially tilted year.

Yes, the Republican-leaning columnists have lowered their scores by criticizing the Bush administration over the Miers nomination and other things, which might be explained by a lack of partisanship relative to their Democratic counterparts. The problem is that we cannot tell how the Democratic pundits would react under the same circumstances. I started Lying in Ponds in 2002, with mostly Republican control of the government. With the addition of the Senate, their control became complete in 2003. We have solid evidence of how these conservative and liberal pundits have responded to that situation, but almost no information on how they would respond to a Democratic government, or even to a more passive, non-controversial Republican administration. If I am persistent or crazy enough to keep doing this until the White House changes parties, then we could begin to see if Paul Krugman would criticize a Democratic administration (we already know he didn’t in 2000), and whether Ann Coulter would take time out to criticize Republicans when they’re the opposition party.