Grading PolitiFact: Haley Barbour and Obama's unified government

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.
--PolitiFact editor Bill Adair

 Here we go again.


The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor


Analysis:

Does PolitiFact focus on the underlying message this time with a Republican the subject of its fact check process?  By the end of the second paragraph it seems like it (bold emphasis added):

During the Oct. 2, 2011, edition of CBS’s Face the Nation, two governors -- Democrat Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Republican Haley Barbour of Mississippi -- faced off over a variety of political and policy issues.

At one point, Barbour parried O’Malley’s criticism of Republican economic policies by noting the size of President Barack Obama’s congressional majorities after he took office in early 2009. His argument was that Obama had significant legislative advantages that should have enabled him to do what he wanted policy-wise -- meaning that Obama can’t legitimately blame the Republicans for blocking what he wanted to do.

That's about as far as we get with the underlying point, however.  PolitiFact proceeds to satisfactorily demonstrate that Democrats on a number of occasions have held greater majorities than the majority enjoyed by Obama during his first years in office.

PolitiFact's conclusion?  "False":

It’s true that Democratic strength in Congress at the beginning of Obama’s term was the strongest it had been in 16 years. But that’s not what Barbour said -- he said the numbers were the strongest going back to President Johnson in the late 1960s. And that was not the case. We rate his statement False.

Have we changed our mind about the underlying point being the most important thing or what?

PolitiFact should check itself with the Flip-O-Meter.


The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Martha Hamilton: F

The grades assume that Bill Adair isn't lying when he says the underlying point is the most important aspect of a numbers claim.


Afters:

I'd have no problem with the grade for Barbour if PolitiFact operated consistently.  But when Sarah Palin accurately states the rank of the U.S. for defense spending as a percentage of GDP she receives a "Barely True" based on her underlying point.  In contrast to Palin, Senator Barbara Boxer gets a benefit from having her underlying argument ignored in addition to kid-gloves treatment of her raw numbers to the tune of "Mostly True."

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is simply the latest conservative to suffer relative harm from PolitiFact's inconsistent application of standards.