BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Ben Cline, the congressman from the Blue Ridge 6th District, is a strict constitutionalist quick to object to government overreach, such as perceived intrusions on gun rights â a big deal in Virginiaâs countryside. His fellow Republican from the 1st District in Tidewater, Rob Wittman, is a Ph.D. who worries the Chesapeake Bay could become an algae-choked Petri dish because of fertilizer runoff from all those upstream suburban lawns.
Cline, a lawyer, and Wittman, a scientist, would tell you there is ample, irrefutable evidence of both â that the facts donât lie.
But Cline and Wittman, in a bow to the emotion that blunts votersâ capacity for reason, appear to have chucked reality when it comes to the presidential election.