Don’t We Need A Baseline? Hilzoy discusses the "Gonzalez Eight", the eight prosecutors fired in a political purge (left), or for poor performance (right). My eyebrows (and ire) were raised by an excerpt from Paul Krugman citing a study which tells us this:
We compare political profiling to racial profiling by presenting the results (January 2001 through December 2006) of the U.S. Attorneys’ federal investigation and/or indictment of 375 elected officials. The distribution of party affiliation of the sample is compared to the available normative data (50% Dem, 41% GOP, and 9% Ind.). Data* indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops. …The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling.
Well, if you don’t even look at data from earlier Administrations you aren’t likely to find anything, now are you? Hilzoy is experiencing a reader’s revolt in her comments, but I expect this "study" will be cited again. And again.
GROAN: Gender-bending pronoun fixed; more after I return from killing myself. Metaphorically.