I am going to give Marsha Blackburn the benefit of the doubt. She didn’t really mean to call Joe Biden “president-elect.”

But what does it say about our current political moment that this is even a story?

Here is Natalie Allison at the Nashville Tennessian:

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a stalwart supporter of President Donald Trump, on Friday referred to Joe Biden as the country’s “president-elect,” a comment her staff later said was a mistake.

Blackburn made the comments Friday evening live on ABC News, where she was being interviewed by Juju Chang.

The remark placed her among just a handful of Republican senators signaling acknowledgement of Biden’s projected victory.

Chang asked Blackburn whether she had been in contact with Biden to congratulate him, as president-elect, on his victory.

“I have not spoken with the president-elect,” Blackburn said. “We did have the vice president come to the floor, the vice president-elect come to the floor this week to cast a vote. I was presiding at the time. Didn’t get to speak with her.”

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile the other Republican Senator from Tennessee is taking a different approach.