What Representation Means: Why Jonathan Chait Is Wrong to Savage Harold Ford Jr

It's hard to figure out what it is about Harold Ford Jr that is so polarizing.  People seem to either love him or hate him.  Count Jonathan Chait of the New Republic as one of the haters.  In this article he savages Ford's character.  His chief complaint is that Ford does not have any principles.  But Chait's analysis is not only gratuitously uncharitable, it is also based upon an assumption about representation that, as Luis has shown in a prior post, is contestable.  Because smart people keep screwing this up, it's worth revisiting.