National Journal: Obama Most Liberal

Surprise, surprise. The very non-partisan, non right wing and very serious National Journal has their liberal rankings out and Barack Obama ranks number one. As expected Fox News and their very non-partisan and serious lineup ran with the rankings as if God had delivered them down from Heaven. Here's the report. I'm going to read the entire thing and probably do an update where I find flaws in their data. Of course then that will make me a partisan, left wing, non serious, freedom hating nutroot.

*Update:

The opening paragraph should be enough to taint National Journal's serious, non-partisan ranking in the media.

The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Not only is Barack the most liberal person in America but he's also an insurgent. Never should anyone in America vote for an insurgent liberal terrorist. But the highly partisan opening statement won't deter Fox News, Drudge, the drug addicted Limbaugh or even John McCain from equating Obama to a liberal Muslim terrorist. Chalk this up as being the next Republican talking point for at least the next 10 months.

**Update:

This has to be the best part:

Members who missed more than half of the votes in any of the three issue categories did not receive a composite score in NJ's ratings. (This rule was imposed after Kerry was ranked the most liberal senator in our 2003 ratings despite having missed more than half of the votes in two categories.) Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the only other senator whose presidential candidacy survived the initial round of primaries and caucuses this year, did not vote frequently enough in 2007 to draw a composite score. He missed more than half of the votes in both the economic and foreign-policy categories. On social issues, which include immigration, McCain received a conservative score of 59. (McCain's composite scores from his prior years in the Senate, published in our March 2007 vote ratings issue, are available as a PDF.)

I'm not sure I should laugh or cry. Let me get this straight. National Journal changed the rules only after the change in rules would have exempted John Kerry from their rankings during the last presidential election? Am I in a parallel universe? In other words, if the same rules had applied in 2004, Kerry would not have been ranked the most liberal person in the galaxy? Are you kidding me? Since John McCain is probably going to be the Republican nominee and since the rules would take the liberal title away from one of the Democratic front runners, National Journal changes the rules to fit the outcome they're were looking for all along. I haven't even made it to the actual votes they ranked and I'm already about to give up on this crap. How can any reputable media run this as a story? This isn't ignorance, this is intentional fraud and deception. Whose to say that if Hillary gets the nod, National Journal won't go back and change the rules again?

***Update III

Okay, I'm going to try and formulate the logic of their data so if this sounds like I'm thinking out loud it's because I am. NJ took 216 votes, then subjected them "to a principal-components analysis" to compare them to other issues at hand. From there they decided that 10 of the votes would be dropped because they were statistically unrelated to other issues, bringing the sample to 206. But then proceeds to refer to the 267 measures that both Hillary and Obama voted on in 2007, insisting that the two senators only differed on 10 votes.

Hold up just a minute. For Democrats every vote counts no matter if they are present votes or yeas or nays, but for Republicans the rules are changed to exempt the Republican front runner from undergoing voting scrutiny. Not only that, when referring to Democrats, NJ uses all 267 votes, which are not even measured in their sample. Only 206 were even measured and labeled by their standards as to what is liberal and conservative. But when talking about Hillary and Obama, all 267 votes are highlighted to show that really the two candidates, despite their own rankings, are very similar if not the same person. It's like saying, yeah we ranked Obama as the most liberal person to ever live, but if you count all the votes, which we didn't, and only do for Democrats then Hillary and Obama are pretty much the same insurgent terrorist liberal.

It's clear these rankings are preconditioned upon party affiliation and front runner adaptation. By their own sampling analysis, NJ completely refutes their conclusions, or at least shows how preposterous they are.

Other reading: The Carpetbagger Report, Brian Beutler.