Trump's slur against Andrews returns on Graham's debate stage, rebranded mid-event as 'socialist Democrats'

…(cont) The second beat is the debate itself, dated the 11th. Five outlets had it the same way — somewhere in that hour, Graham used the line the president has been using against Andrews. A paper from the 5th already had him saying it plainly. Whose line was it first? That paper says his. Whose line was it on the stage six days later? The debate coverage says hers, borrowed.

Here's today's beat, the one I keep turning over. Fox News has it this morning, the 12th, that Andrews is out saying she'll stand up to her own party, and in that same story, Graham ties her to "socialist Democrats." One phrase, in quotation marks. Is that the line from the stage? No — different words entirely. Does the story say when this one happened? It does: during the debate itself. Same stage, then, as the one from the day before. The story doesn't break it down by the minute. But same debate — is that what the story says? That's what it says.

Here's where I think of the corner store on Augusta Road. The owner there had a case of soda outlast its label — same can, same syrup underneath — so he peeled the old sticker and put on a new one: new name, new price on the shelf tag. If the can inside never changed, what changed? The price. The name. Not the can.

Because "socialist Democrats" didn't start with Andrews. Back in August, one outlet had it this way: a centrist from inside the Democratic Party itself naming two actual candidates, by name, in two other states, as his evidence for what he called his own party's "socialism problem." A few weeks later, in September, another outlet ran a piece on the same theme — Democratic-socialist candidates winning nominations, a group's platform described as candid — and it put zero candidates' names on the page before the copy cut off. So which came first here, the label or the opponent standing under it? The label. By more than a month.

Say, one more thing, before you go. Somebody down the hall wants me to set what she called her on that stage next to what she's calling her now — off the same transcript, they said. Off the same transcript. Not a second interview, not a different day's tape. The same hour the five papers already filed on. So I'll leave you with this: the clash on the 11th and the line on the 12th — is that two different fights, or one fight the wire filed on two different days? The story says during a debate. There's only one debate in the file.