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PolitiFact.com has some nice summaries of the attacks made against Barack Obama and the attacks against John McCain, and assesses the relative truth or falsity of those attacks. It has seemed to me, following this campaign, that the attacks made by John McCain and his surrogates are more frequent and less true than those made by Barack Obama and his surrogates, and this gives me a good opportunity to test that theory.

For these purposes, I’m leaving out chain e-mails and PACs. I’m primarily concerned with what the candidates themselves, and their official surrogates and spokespeople (including convention speakers) have said. I’m also starting from the beginning of August, because there are a lot of such attacks, and many of them before the beginning of August actually come from primary opponents. I actually did not start the tally until after I wrote these first two paragraphs, and I vow to post the results no matter how they turn out.

So here’s the score:

Anti-Obama attack breakdown:

1 “True”
0 “Mostly True”
4 “Half True”
8 “Barely True”
4 “False”
2 “Pants On Fire”

Anti-McCain attack breakdown:

9 “True”
3 “Mostly True”
4 “Half True”
5 “Barely True”
2 “False”
1 “Pants On Fire”

Total scored attacks against Obama by McCain campaign and surrogates: 19 (5% “True”; 5% “Mostly True” or better”; 26% “Half True” or better; 74% “Barely True” or worse; 32% “False” or worse)
Total scored attacks against McCain by Obama campaign and surrogates: 24 (38% “True”; 50% “Mostly True” or better; 67% “Half True” or better; 33% “Barely True” or worse; 13% “False” or worse)

So, as it turns out, my impression was half-right: if these analyses are a representative sample, the Obama camp attacks somewhat more often than the McCain camp, but their attacks are much more accurate (or much less inaccurate, depending on your perspective).

Also, chew on those numbers for a minute: Only one anti-Obama attack out of nineteen could be scored better than “half-true.” That’s pretty staggering, even if unsurprising for those of us who have been following GOP politics for a while.

Cross-posted at Lean Left.