I’m with Charles Pierce on this.

She is accused of “playing on Trump’s field.” So what? Only a child believes that there is one field on which an election is contested. And, truth be told, the elite political press has a great deal to do in defining what the “field” of play actually is. It was the elite political press that helped establish the “field” of play in 2016, even though they’d rather pull out their own fingernails than admit it. The way you win an election is that you beat the opponent on his field, on your field, and on any neutral fields that pop up during the campaign.

It might be worth remembering the backstory, given that I doubt Elizabeth Warren ever thought she’d have to defend this or deal with it in the first place. If I recall, this was nonsense dug up by the Scott Brown campaign: Warren included a family story in a brief bio of the kind that colleges routinely publish in “who we are” promotional material. Unknown to her, Harvard University used this to cynically tout their own cause.

Brown’s smear was elaborated upon by the puke funnel, and topped off by Orange Narcissus’s particular short-fingered vulgarian touch…a smear that implied Warren, and by extension her family, were undeserving, opportunistic liars, unfairly attempting to claim quota status…which is exactly the sort of lie a media worth the name would immediately put an end to. Or, absent that, might at least note how reckless Brown et al were in describing their opponents as a “basket of deplorables”…wait, sorry…I meant undeserving liars getting free stuff that regular (i.e., white) folks can’t.

Oh, and that the Senator is, you know, a little girl.

As far as I’m concerned, Warren’s response is exactly what she should do: stand up to a bully, close the chapter, and move on. It’s also an excellent introduction of a good, even superb, candidate for high office.

But, as usual, the where-are-the-Republican-heroes cultists and their enablers will do everything they can to keep the playing field tilted rightward. Hence, the handwringing and head shaking. She wasn’t…sufficiently savvy, in their august judgment.

Well…fuck ’em.