WANT TO VISIT THE REPUBLICAN LIE FACTORY to see how they create their material? A right-wing blogger writes a what-if? about Senate Democrats (classic fiction technique: What if [fill in the blank] happened?) and then blasts it around the rightie blogosphere as if it actually happened.

Set forth here is one of the most disgraceful arguments to be hurled at any potential Supreme Court Justice (HT: Hugh Hewitt) -- namely, that Judge Michael Luttig would be impermissibly biased in hearing death penalty cases because his own father was, in fact, a crime victim.

Are the liberals really wanting to go down this road? By the same reasoning, every potential female justice should be asked whether she's ever had an abortion -- because abortion cases would come up before the Court. Or minority candidates would have to discuss how/whether they ever felt discriminated against -- because if they had, it might impermissibly color their view of civil rights cases.

Only problem: Luttig has not been nominated to the Supreme Court because there is no current opening on the Supreme Court, and the supposed Democratic objection to Luttig is based on a 9-year-old article from a newspaper in Hampton Roads, VA, about objections raised by defense attorneys in a local death penalty case.

I found out about this via Matthew Yglesias, who spotted it at apostrophe.