I sure hope you won't be in the same foxhole as me.
Complicity is a bitch bubba. The MSM is counting on you.
The MSM is counting on some pencil neck being able to push some guy's buttons and, if he 'scores', to get some outrageously bad optics on a candidate at the last moment.
It worked.
The reporter may have got
more than he wanted, but he got what he wanted nonetheless. He's front and center in a political story that could seriously hurt a candidate, depending on how people take it. (Plus "victim" status, plus "troot to powah", plus, plus, plus--serious Lib cred that could advance his career in the media.)
Remember the most populated areas of any state trend liberal, and Billings, Bozeman, Missoula, Great Falls will outvote the rest.
If I want someone to represent me in Congress, it'd be nice if they have the political awareness to realize that getting in a scrape with a reporter, no matter how aggravating, doesn't look like good judgement. Of course newspapers are pulling their endorsements--they're media.
Yes, some of us sympathize, some of us have had days where we'd (at the very least) like to mop the floor with some aggravating pissant, but no matter how much they need that, doing so is only going to get you in more crap. I'd rather have people in awe of my self-control than my ability to knock some little twerp down. As a Congressman he could have the guy barred from his press conferences. There's the long term payback for being a jerk, versus instantaneous gratification.
As for the foxhole, relax. If it gets down to being in a foxhole, the gloves will have come off long before then and being civil won't be part of the deal. For now, we aren't in a shootin' war and the rules are a mite different.