U.S. Sen. Martha McSally decided she’d take to the pages of the Arizona Republic yesterday to explain why she called a CNN reporter a “liberal hack” instead of answering a basic question about whether she wanted to hear from witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

It was obviously a rehearsed line: McSally even had one of her staffers recording the incident so she could tweet it out and—by the end of the same day—start hawking T-shirts and raising campaign dollars off the exchange.

McSally’s opinion piece in the Republic spends a lot of time complaining that the liberal media is biased against her. And she boasts that she’s a real straight talker:

As a U.S. senator for Arizona, it is my responsibility to faithfully represent the people of Arizona and tell them the truth.

The latter part of that duty is all too often lost in today’s political environment. Politicians often sugarcoat things, tell you what you want to hear and otherwise play games with language that obscures the truth in our politics. It’s a runaway train of people who never seem to say what they mean or what’s really going on.

And that’s when I get off the train.

I am not a career politician. I don’t play that game because it does a disservice to the people of Arizona.

Except McSally does play that game. She has dodged and weaved when it comes to basic questions about her positions since she first joined the campaign trail. In fact, you need look no further than the Arizona Republic on the same day her commentary was published.

Political reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez jumped right on the revelation that former National Security Advisor John Bolton reveals in his new book that Trump told him directly that he was holding up aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden. Sanchez, recognizing that Bolton was a big supporter of McSally and McSally was a big supporter of Bolton, thought it would be worthwhile to see if McSally would want to hear from Bolton directly on this matter, since it pretty much blows up Trump’s defense that holding up the aid had nothing to do with a Biden investigation.

Here’s what Sanchez wrote about her query to McSally: “Through a spokeswoman, McSally declined to say whether she wants to hear from Bolton.”

Such brave straight talk from Sen. McSally, who says her vow is “to tell you the truth. To explain my votes. And to call ’em like I see ’em.”

Except in this case. And this one. And this one. And this one…