Partisanship Rankings

Of all of the nationally syndicated newspaper columnists, who was the most consistently, one-sided and partisan in 2005? Economist Paul Krugman of the NY Times according to the website "lying in ponds," which analyzes op-ed columns for partisanship. For example, in 95 commentaries published in the NY Times in 2005, Krugman criticized Republicans 621 times and criticized Democrats only 18 times, for a partisanship ratio of 34.5X to 1 against Republicans. Likewise, Krugman praised Democrats 103 times and praised Republicans only 9 times. Therefore, these data show that Krugman spent most of the space in his NY Times columns criticizing Republicans, and got ranked #1 for partisanship in 2005 by "lying in ponds."

In contrast, economist Thomas Sowell ranked #16 in 2005, based on the following results: he criticized Republicans 65 times in his columns and criticized Dems 94 times. Sowell praised Republicans 89 times and praised Dems 13 times.

So far this year, Krugman ranks #3, and the top 5 most partisan columnists in 2006 are liberals (Molly Ivins, Joe Conason, Krugman, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich). Conservative Ann Coulter ranks #6. Ivans (528 anti-Rep comments), Krugman (534 anti-Rep comments), and Rich (566 anti-Rep comments) are even more anti-Republican than Ann Coulter is anti-Democrat ("only" 309 anti-Dem comments). Yikes!!