You’ve surely heard by now that Stephen Colbert is headed to CBS to replace David Letterman, leaving behind Comedy Central and his iconic alter ego, a breathtaking and irreverent parody of conservative personalities such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. As everyone who has followed his career knows, Colbert frequently jokes about “truthiness,” a term he coined which Wikipedia defines as “a quality characterizing a ‘truth’ that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively, ‘from the gut,’ or because it ‘feels right’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.”
Colbert in particular applied this term to President George W. Bush’s decisions, most notably in his 2006 White House Correspondent’s Dinner address in which he ripped President Bush for what Colbert clearly regarded as stupidity and ignorance. The political left loved it. New York Times columnist Frank Rich called the speech “brilliant.”
Of course, Colbert’s joke has some truth to it. No conservative would call the Bush presidency perfect, marred as it was by mistakes such as the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, the U.S. Attorney firing controversy and the far-from-perfect foreign policy. Yet some of those laughing the loudest at Colbert’s truthiness shtick are the ones pushing an agenda through means much more sinister than anything resembling the truthiness of the Bush Administration.
Truthiness, as I pointed out above, involves a policy marked by a conspicuous lack of statistics or evidence. Its unfortunate cousin is the yet-unnamed manipulation or fabrication of statistics to achieve a political goal. As it is yet unnamed, I feel compelled to give it a name: “Dishonestiness.” Dishonestiness is truthiness’ evil doppelganger. The perpetrator of dishonesty must recognize that statistics and evidence are prerequisites to a convincing case. Yet upon closer examination, the evidence that our dishonest politician is seeking is nowhere to be found. Abandon his cause? Never! The dishonest politician must press on, and provide statistics that prove his case, even when actual statistics do not back it up.
Take, for instance, the widely-cited statistics concerning sexual assault rates on college campuses. President Obama seemed to think that the oft-cited “one in four” statistic was a bit inflated, because he stated that the actual number was “one in five” when his administration launched its well-received sexual assault prevention program. Undoubtedly, President Obama has picked a worthy cause to pursue. But he appears nothing if not dishonest when the lead researcher of the “one in five” study stated, “We don’t think one in five is a nationally representative statistic.” And as an extremely helpful piece in Slate points out, studies and calculations that are far more encompassing and trustworthy put the rate at under 5 percent, and other calculations put the rate at under 1 percent. Interestingly, these statistics are hardly mentioned in the public conversation about sexual assault. I do not write this to argue the “one in four” and “one in five” statistics are unequivocally wrong, but rather, to cast doubt on anyone who cites these statistics as indisputable facts. Politicians and pundits guilty of this are perpetrators of dishonestiness.
Obama’s recent executive action on immigration might also be considered dishonest. Putting aside the obvious constitutional issues and the fact that he had, for years, said such action was not permissible under law, Obama relied on shoddy statistics to provide a political rationale for his decision. In a November interview with ABC News, Obama claimed George H.W. Bush provided “a similar kind of relief as a consequence of executive action” to about 40 percent of undocumented persons.
In actuality, Bush (the first) eased deportation rules to exempt children and spouses, but it did not make them legal residents. In addition, the Washington Post reported at the time that the policy could affect “as many as 100,000 illegal aliens,” a far cry from 40 percent (1.5 million) of the estimated 3.5 million illegal immigrants in the country that year. And as the Washington Post reported in late 2014, “even with broader criteria, the number of immigrants who took advantage of Bush’s action…was far less than 1.5 million.” In the aforementioned Washington Post review of President Obama’s plan, the paper awarded him three out of a possible four “Pinocchios” for abject dishonesty.
There are countless more examples of statistical dubiousness among politicians and the media that go far beyond the scope of this column. These include the wildly inaccurate (and widely cited) statistics that measure the gender wage gap and the impact of higher minimum wages. A quick Google search will turn up a veritable library of other cases of suspect claims.
I should also mention that, of course, conservative politicians and media outlets are guilty of misleading as well (see this amusing account of Fox News miscues as proof). Neither liberals nor conservatives have any excuse for putting forth bad statistics. But the statistical fraud stemming from the liberal media outlets and politicians who found Colbert’s truthiness rant so hysterical is particularly egregious. If you choose to laugh loudly at those who use their hearts and rely on their guts, you had better use your brain.
John Connolly is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at j.connolly@cavalierdaily.com.
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