[SteveGoob]

The "left" and "right" political descriptors are often problematic in this sense, since they are relative terms. If you ask my conservative parents where CNN is, they'll describe it relative to their own placement on the spectrum. But an eye-of-the-beholder center is problematic for communication, so how should one determine the middle? A mean? Median? Something else?

But that doesn't even address a dependent problem of the quantifiablilty of a political ideology. You can't boil a belief into a number; why do we pretend that polotical ideologies fall on a soft numberline? A libertarian may "lean left" on marijuana legalization, but "lean right" on gun control.

Indeed, the left-right dichonomy's inability to house non-linear opinions or ideas leads to a lot of confusion, especially so in journalism. Where does a factual, source based news outlet lie on the spectrum?