The Case for Political Performance Ratings

Political opinions are like posteriors; with a few exceptions, everyone has one. And, like rear ends, what comes out frequently looks and smells terrible, the more so after the passage of time.

Political opinions are the most dangerous kind of opinions, more so than almost any other kind of subjective thought. Political opinions can lead to discrimination, wars and genocide.

A poorly-considered movie or restaurant review wastes a few hours of your life and may, at worst, cause food poisoning. While a doctor whose opinions are wrong may kill some patients, one quack’s death count amounts to a drop in the bucket compared to those of the pundits and politicians who falsely opined, say, that Iraq has WMDs and had to be invaded lest Saddam nuke us. That opinion killed over a million people.

Given the high stakes, it’s surprising how little accountability there is for having and expressing—loudly expressing—a political opinion that turns out to have been deadly wrong.

This is especially true about political professionals. Politicians, political journalists and political academics are paid to study issues, analyze problems and develop solutions that affect people at home and around the globe. Taking history into account, they’re supposed to deploy pattern recognition to anticipate what might go wrong in the future. Being right about what’s going on, what it means and what ought to be done is their job.

Yet many do a sloppy job. No wonder—in politics, there is no penalty whatsoever for poor performance. Even if you say something totally untrue, even if you make a prediction that never comes to pass, even if you are really, really LOUD when you’re really, really wrong, and even if people die because you were really loudly wrong, nothing happens. You brush it off and move on, like it never even happened.

Columnist Bill Kristol was a vocal advocate for invading Iraq in 2003, arguing that Saddam had WMDs and posed a global threat. He co-founded the Project for the New American Century, which pushed for regime change and originated the idea of invading Iraq. Nevertheless, the New York Times hired him five years later.

It’s not like he’s changed. He still defends his screw-up. Co-founder of The Bulwark, he remains a frequent guest on cable news.

Likewise, Robert Kagan strongly supported Bush’s war. Now he is a senior fellow at the “liberal” Brookings Institution, a columnist for The Washington Post and has books published by major publishers.

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote influential article pushing the war, including a notorious New Yorker piece falsely linking Iraq to Al Qaeda. Saddam and Al Qaeda were enemies, so Goldberg had to know he was lying. He is editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and a frequent guest on news programs. No apology.

The verdict of history is clear. Most Americans think the Iraq War was a mistake. Yet those who helped make it happen never suffered damage to their reputations, much less lost their jobs. They prospered. Conversely, absurdly, no prominent opponent of the Iraq War has ever been hired by a major U.S. newspaper or TV network.

Despite his ratings, MSNBC fired Phil Donahue and Ashleigh Banfield for coming out against the war. The Times pushed out Chris Hedges.

Politics is an upside-down world where evil always wins and good always loses. If the movies were like politics, Battlefield Earth would be in the Criterion Collection and Sunset Boulevard would get 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. If dining were like politics, Arby’s would enjoy three Michelin stars while Table by Bruno Verjus in Paris rotted away with 1.5 on Yelp. If Wall Street were like Washington, stock brokers who advised their clients to go long on Enron would be rich and beloved.

While there are companies that rate journalistic organizations’ ideological bias and accuracy, there is no place for a discerning consumer of political content to go in order to evaluate the past performance of a candidate or opinion writer—a Yelp or Google Reviews for voters.

A politico-rating service could contextualize political opinions so that a listener could literally “consider the source.”

For example:

John Bolton, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, appears frequently on CNN and Fox News. These days, he’s claiming that the only party at fault in Gaza is Hamas, that Israel is merely defending itself and that Palestinians are starving because Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid, including food. This isn’t true—but how many of us know that?

What if, every time Bolton were quoted in print and showed up on TV, a Political Performance Rating (PPR) reminded us of who Bolton is and how wrong he has been, and how often?

PPR for John Bolton – far-right/neocon: 1.3 ★ “Bush’s Undersecretary of State falsely insisted Iraq had WMDs, falsely claimed Iran had nuclear weapons and falsely accused Cuba of developing biological and chemical weapons. Never met a war he didn’t like. Everything he says turns out to be wrong and/or a lie.”

Past performance, of course, is no guarantee of future returns. But it’s a pretty good indication, which is why financial analysts pore over stock charts. Though it’s theoretically possible that someone with an F-minus performance record like Bolton might uncharacteristically say something correct about, say, Israel, it’s highly unlikely. Bolton’s PPR would tell you, this guy is unreliable—when you’re deciding whether or not to go to war, listen to someone—anyone—else.

Similarly, as Americans reconsider their longstanding commitment to Israel, they might need a PPR system for news organizations and political parties.

Like…

PPR for ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS – legacy/corporate: 0.6 ★ “In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, only 1 out of 267 guests on the nightly news expressed any skepticism or opposition to the war. Epic fail!”

Awareness of their low PPR would have been useful during the first six weeks of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, when the same outlets skewed their coverage in favor of Israel. They’re usually wrong and usually pro-war, so they’re probably the same now.

PPR should be negatively weighted by political prognostications that not only turn out to be wrong, but are obviously wrong at the time when they are issued, like those who claimed U.S. forces would find WMDs in Iraq. Laura Loomer, the right-wing pundit, had to have known, or should have, that her prediction that “New York City will be destroyed” under Mayor Zohran Mamdani and that Muslims will start “committing jihad all over New York” will not and cannot come to pass.

Under the First Amendment, morons like Loomer can say anything they want. But we should be able to ignore what they say as easily as we can skip a 3.3-rated restaurant on Google.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s WHAT’S LEFT.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)