Build Your Own Strawman
By Blogging has become difficult this weekend because I’m on the road and my laptop is on the fritz, but I must draw attention to Carl Hulse’s classic example of imagining people who are as gullible towards congressional Republicans as the typical access reporter has to pretend to be:
The thing is that these people in “blue America” don’t exist, which is why Hulse cites exactly zero people who have the views he attributes to the typical Democrat. Nobody who knows enough about the “McConnell Rule” thinks there’s the slightest chance that Senate Republicans would refuse to confirm a replacement for RBG at any point in 2020 out of principle. As Hulse actually concedes later, this isn’t even a question of going through the Beltway ritual pretending to take McConnell at face value — he’s openly admitted he would confirm a Trump nominee. And Hulse even concedes that one of the two Republican senators who could conceivably vote against a Trump Supreme Court nominee under any circumstances wouldn’t even be subject to meaningless “hypocrisy” charges because she nominally advocated for Garland getting a hearing! But to just lead with that rather than making up a bunch of imaginary “blue America” dummies would make your whole piece look trite instead of SAVVY, so we get this lede instead.