Let's first compare ratings for True/Mostly True ratings vs. those for Mostly False or worse (Mostly False/False/Pants on Fire):

Obama: 46% True or Mostly True, 29% Mostly false or worse

Romney: 29% True or Mostly True, 43% Mostly false or worse

So here, the numbers are flipped. Obama is +17% for true/mostly true over mostly false or worse while Romney is -14%.

How about just looking at pants on fire ratings. Since Obama has 2.5x as many ratings, that means he'll have more pants on fire ratings, right?

Obama: 6 Pants on Fire ratings (2%)

Romney: 14 Pants on Fire ratings (9%)

So even though Romney only has 40% of the ratings Obama does, he actually has more than twice as many "pants on fire" ratings, which make up almost 1 in 10 of this total ratings.

How about looking at the ratio between true and pants on fire ratings? The comparison of the best and the worst?

Obama: 91 True, 6 Pants on Fire, for a ratio of 15.2 : 1

Romney: 23 True, 14 Pants on Fire, for a ratio of 1.6 : 1

Not only does Obama have a better Completely True to Lying his pants off ratio, he blows Romney out of the park with a ratio that is 9.5 times better.

Well, what about each candidate's top 3 most frequent ratings. Surely Romney may at least tie Obama here. Well...

Obama: Half True (99), True (91), Mostly True (91)

Romney: Half True (43), False (27), Mostly False (24)

Whoops. While they both have Half True (a favorite middle-of-the-road rating) at the most common rating, Obama goes north of that after that while Romney goes south.

Well...what if we take out the middle two ratings of Half True and Mostly False?

Obama: True/Mostly True vs. False/Pants on Fire: 182 to 64 (46% to 17%)

Romney: True/Mostly True vs. False/Pants on Fire: 44 to 41 (29% to 27%)

As an NRO author noted, Obama's absolute False/Pants on Fire number is bigger. Of course, he beats Romney by 56% while having 158% more total ratings. And if you want to go with absolute numbers...Obama has told the truth 4 times more than Romney has...

Of course. if the media has some image of Romney as being truthful, maybe that's a carryover from the primary where Romney was almost George Washington-like in his truthfulness compared to other GOP candidates.

For example, Michelle Bachmann has 9 true or mostly true ratings (17%) vs. 38 mostly false or worse ratings (72%). She almost has many Pants on Fire ratings (12) as she has True, Mostly True, and Half True ratings combined (15).