Data Driven

"You're not the only one who does research."
--Darby Shaw (The Pelican Brief)

When Mark Twain offered that, "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics," he probably had a political context in mind. Politicians likely manipulate data more than any other group.

Professor Scott Harrington at Wharton offers a nice example President Obama's data manipulation skills expressed during his health care speech to Congress last wk. Prof Harrington's findings suggest that data intended by the president to demonstrate the severity of dropped health care coverage, or the monopolistic tendencies of health insurers in certain locales, don't stand up to critical scrutiny.

Of course, such scrutiny is rare--and non existent by those on your side of the aisle (or issue).

When politicians serve up the data, it always pays to go the extra mile and seek the Rest of the Story.