Last week the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel devoted her weekly column — “Vance Goes AWOL” — to criticism of Vance by congressional Republicans. Strassel channeled the frustration of congressional Republicans for his scarcity on Capitol Hill in general and his cancellation of a scheduled meeting with them on Tuesday last week: “They instead were notified of a scheduling conflict as Air Force Two winged to Texas. Wednesday was spent watching Mr. Vance on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he bashed the Senate for its ‘procedural bulls—.’”
Well, of course, this could not stand. Strassel devotes her column this week to the J.D. Vance Experience — the ill-founded backlash she has suffered from Vance and his band of followers, including The Federalist’s Sean Davis. Her column this week is “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, by JD Vance.”
Strassel responds to the weak factual issues raised against her first column and adds:
Most telling as to how this crew operates was the Federalist’s Sean Davis, who accused me of “pulling” an “obvious little stunt” against Mr. Vance, “whose wife just gave birth.” This appeared above my headline, “President Vance Goes AWOL.” The implication was that I’d criticized the vice president for taking a day of paternity leave. But as Mr. Davis knew, Usha Vance didn’t bear little Alec—mazel tov—until five days after Mr. Vance’s controversial absence. What Mr. Davis also knows is that online mobs don’t check facts, and he got his desired result: hundreds of posts slanging me as not just a traitor, but an unfeeling ass.
Also as a “deep state” “Marxist” “liberal” “corrupt” “billionaire lackey,” an “intellectually dishonest” “uniparty mouthpiece,” who is little more than a “scumbag propagandist,” and “anti-Trump,” and who lives for the “donor class.”
If they think that’s bad, they should hear what my kids call me.
Can Mr. Vance possibly think this is smart?
I watched this part of the Vance op play out on X over the past week. It’s not a good look, but it’s how Vance and his band roll.
