Politifact truthiness rankings

Just a heads up, these figures were all tallied up last week.  There may have been more coverage since then.  The data comes from this website, all you have to do is search the person's name.


http://www.politifact.com/

I've been keeping an eye on Politifact's rating of President Obama's "truthiness" as Stephen Colbert likes to call it.  Last week in one of my semi-regular checkups I decided to rate him against the remaining GOP Presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.  President Obama's rates don't really surprise me, partly because I've been paying attention to it but mostly because the GOP is generally not on good terms with the truth, with an exception of Ron Paul.  Without further adieu, here are the various rankings from different points of view:

First, here is the breakdown of statements reviewed:

1) President Obama - 341
2) Mitt Romney - 108
3) Newt Gingrich - 47
4) Ron Paul - 31
5) Dick Santorum - 20

Here is the ratio of True/Half True/False ranked by highest truth percentage:

1) President Obama  46% Truth, 25% Half True, 29% False
2) Ron Paul 45% Truth, 16% Half True, 39% False
3) Mitt Romney 36% Truth, 27% Half True, 37% False
4) Dick Santorum 18% Truth, 36% Half True, 46% False
5)Newt Gingrich 17% Truth, 23% Half True, 60% False


Here it is broken down, giving the benefit of the doubt to half truths:

1) Obama 71% Truth, 29% False
2) Romney 63% Truth, 37% False
3) Paul 61% Truth, 39% False
4) Santorum 54% Truth, 46% False
5) Gingrich 40% Truth, 60% False

The Biggest Liars:

1) Gingrich
2) Santorum
3) Paul
4) Romney
5) Obama

For Pants on Fire (really freaking bad lies)

1) Gingrich 9 out of 47 - 19%
2) Romney 10 out of 108 - 10%
3) Santorum 2 out of 22 - 9%
4) Paul 2 out of 31 - 6%
5) Obama 5 out of  341 - 1%

100% True

1) Obama 81/341 - 24%
2) Paul 7/31 - 23%
3) Romney 21/108 - 19%
4) Santorum 3/22 - 14%
5) Gingrich 4/47 - 9%

President Obama outpaces everyone pretty well when it comes to honestly with Ron Paul close behind. Mitt Romney isn't bad off.  Dick Santorum is slightly on the truthy side, but it is a tough call. My favorite part about all of this though is Newt Gingrich's breakdown.  You can literally say that every other word out of Newt Gingrich's mouth is a lie, and that is still an understatement.