THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Derek Willis proves that even the slowest witted writer can earn a place on the New York Times as a political correspondent. In a piece that is many years late, he reveals that the Sunday Talking Head shows are ideologically tilted to the right.

Conservative members of the current Congress have appeared more often on the network talk shows than their liberal counterparts. Senators and representatives from the conservative end of the ideological spectrum have made 57 percent of the appearances, compared with 42 percent for liberals, according to an Upshot analysis of data collected by American University.

This slightly lopsided distribution is primarily the result of three Republican senators’ frequent visits to the network shows: John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. Because of the Republican Party’s control of the House during the past three years, its leaders and committee chairmen are presented with more opportunities to discuss the latest political news.

Participants in the 2008 and 2012 presidential nominating contests also helped boost conservative representation: Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who was the G.O.P.‘s 2012 vice-presidential nominee, made 46 appearances between early January 2009 and Aug. 3, 2014.

We matched the list of frequent guests to ideological scores generated by Crowdpac, a website that makes detailed ideological comparisons between political candidates. They extend along a line from “10 Liberal” to “10 Conservative.” The analysis excludes former members of Congress who have contractual agreements to appear on one of the five shows: “Fox News Sunday,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” ABC’s “This Week” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” The appearances were compiled from data collected by the Women in Politics Institute at American University.

When the Sunday shows have turned to former members of Congress, the same ideological pattern emerges: Conservatives have made 56 percent of the appearances, compared with 41 percent for liberals. As a group, the former conservative lawmakers were slightly more liberal than their current counterparts.

In a display of lack of curiosity, he notes the Republican control of the House as a reason for more GOP House members, but he fails to note that Democratic control of the Senate does not provide any boost to the number of Democratic Senators showing up. Indeed, without Johnny Boom-Boom McCain and Miss Lindsey Graham, the shows would have few Senatorial appearances. And those would probably be Republican.