Now Paul Krugman has drawn attention to a study that complains that the politically-motivated investigations just aren't fair and balanced enough:

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.

When I first heard this, I didn't even blink--I just figured that Democrat officials were just vastly more corrupt than their Republican counterparts. After all, Republicans usually have a few million in the bank before they run for office--Democrats tend to get rich after they get elected.

As it turns out, its just another case of lefties lying through their teeth.

Just a few Google searches found several instances of Republican elected officials who were investigated by the Department of Justice but which were not included in the authors' data set. My quick search revealed 6 Republican elected officials or candidates who have been served with subpoenas or had their offices searched as part of federal investigations.

Ralph Reed is perhaps most prominent of the names omitted. Reed was subpoenaed as part of the investigation into Jack Abramoff's misdeeds, while Reed was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. However, Reed is not included in Shields' and Cragan's "study."

Another major omission is a major investigation into the Alaskan legislature. The key subject is Ben Stevens, the state Senate President and son of Alaskan Republican U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. As part of a wide-ranging corruption probe, FBI agents searched the offices of Ben Stevens and 5 other state legislators (4 Republicans and 1 Democrat) were searched by FBI agents. Yet the "study" notes only one Alaskan official as the subject of an investigation.

These omissions are a result of one or more types of statistical bias. The theoretical biases were obvious simply from reading the paper. The concrete examples prove that the study is worthless. Just that quick sample increased the number of Republican officials and candidates investigated by the Bush Administration by about 10%.

Actually my first clue was the opening paragraph:

Our ongoing study of the Bush Justice Department (to be published in 2008) investigates the implications of the Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department's blended religious -fundamentalist and neo-conservative rhetorical vision. The study views the impact of the Justice Department's vision on the fight against public corruption and reveals the non-proportionate political profiling of elected Democratic officials.

Glad to see that this isn't a political-motivated investigation...