Another exciting adventure in data manipulation

The Wall Street Journal's opinion page is placing the potential demise of America's credit rating squarely on President Obama. To do so, they use equal parts of spin and data teasing. Witness the following graph used as "evidence" of Obama's guilt.

Eegats! That's a humongous change in spending! Why Obama goes from almost the bottom of the graph to the top in just TWO YEARS! This is unprecedented! That socialist! That cad! Think about our children's futures...they'll be serfs to the government's debt for the rest of their lives!

Wait, what's that you say--the bottom of the graph is set to 17% and the top is 26%? So Obama didn't take is from the top to the bottom in two years? And Obama didn't take over office until 2009 when it was already at 22%? You mean George Bush is responsible for that horrendous increase from the bottom at 17% to 22%? But the way you tell the story, Mr. Editor, and the way the graph looks, it's as if Obama took us from a balanced budget to total meltdown in just over two years. Leave it up to that liberal media to distort stats to make a democrat look bad.

Too much sarcasm? Sorry, sometimes I find it humorous the way graphs are manipulated to go along with preconceived notions. The amount of politicking from non-politicians, flip-flopping on the debt, blaming Obama for Bush's debt etc., tends to crack me up. Enjoy.