Newsbuster Brent Baker complains:

Not the biggest deal, but emblematic of how the Washington press corps consider anyone to the right of center, no matter if barely so, to be a “conservative,” while anyone who strays at all from a perfect liberal line is not worthy of an ideological label.

Setting up Sunday's Face the Nation, CBS's Bob Schieffer described guest Evan Bayh simply as “the Indiana Democrat” while tagging Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is every bit, if not more, off the conservative reservation as Bayh is off the liberal one, as a “conservative Republican.”

Baker didn't provide a shred of evidence for his claim that Graham and Bayh are equally divergent from their parties' ideological mainstream. Turns out there's good reason to describe Graham as a “conservative Republican” and Bayh merely as a “Democrat”: Evan Bayh is not particularly liberal, while Lindsay Graham is a conservative Republican.

Political scientists Jeff Lewis and Keith Poole rank each member of Congress in order from most liberal to least liberal based on the votes they cast. For the 111th Senate, Lewis and Poole find that Bayh has the 59th most liberal voting record, while Graham's is tied for 83rd. For the 110th Senate, Bayh was the 51st most liberal, while Graham was 88th. For the 109th, Bayh was 28th most liberal, while Graham was 94th. For the 108th, Bayh was 42nd most liberal and Graham was 92nd.

So for every Senate in which they both served, Evan Bayh's voting record placed him far closer to the center of the Senate than Lindsay Graham. Bayh's voting record has never placed him among the most most liberal Senators; Graham's has typically placed him among the most conservative.

Maybe Baker is confused about this because Graham is often -- and inaccurately -- described by the media as “moderate”?