Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R–VA) responds to allegations that his name is made up.
Yesterday, during committee markup of a probably-doomed abortion bill making its way through the House, Rep. Bob Goodlatte argued that restricting access to abortions creates jobs. “Having new children brought into the world is not harmful to job creation,” he said, himself employing litotes for a job it maybe didn’t need to do. It was a peculiar line of reasoning, partly for the sheer bulk of its verbiage—more on that later—and partly because of its ambitious attempt to connect an old controversy to the political byword of the day. Strap on your chunky glasses, because Rep. Goodlatte is the subject of today’s Close Reading.