Our Failed Political Press ™

There’s a piece in the WaPo entitled (and I do mean entitled), The Joe Manchin of the House GOP? And Betteridges Law Of Headlines just keeled over. Anyway, it is pushing the notion that there are some reasonable Republicans in the House, without ever saying why they think this dude might be one, you know, other than him saying that he is one.

Stop us if this sounds familiar.
[Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) is a] moderate lawmaker who is loyal to his party while maintaining a stubborn independent streak becomes a barometer of whether legislation can pass a chamber narrowly controlled by his party. The press closely focuses on where he stands or which way he’s leaning to determine if there is legislative trouble ahead or if a bill is ready to pass…

…Bacon is already in the middle of conversations with a bipartisan group of members to forge a deal to lift the government borrowing limit this summer to avoid a debt default.

Bacon said he would like to see an agreement where spending is kept under inflation, but he acknowledged that many workable ideas exist.

He also said he is open to collaborating with Democrats on a discharge petition — a mechanism Democrats are discussing to force a vote to lift the debt limit if McCarthy won’t bring a bill to do so to the floor — but not without concessions from Democrats.

“We’re willing to do a discharge petition if there’s a good-faith effort by Biden to compromise and to come up with a good solution,” he said, going further publicly than other Republicans.

Look, Bacon is not much different from Rep. Nancy Mace, who has somehow conned our Failed Political Press ™ into believing that she is a serious person and a moderate; she appears on all the newsy shows and positions herself to be the backstop to all the nonsense from MAGA Republicans, and then she votes with them every single time. This Bacon is trying the same con.

Let’s look at a sample Bacon’s votes so far this Congress:

• Voted to remove Rep. Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee
• Voted to remove the pandemic public emergency declaration
• Voted to establish the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
• Voted to defund the money for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act
• Voted to adopt the nutty new House Rules that put the crazies on the committees

And the WaPo thinks he is a moderate? Jeebus, what does it take for our credulous press to actually look at these jamokes’ actual records instead of transcribing their sound bites?