This is an opinion column.

In her State of the Union rebuttal, Sen. Katie Britt’s delivery made the substance of what she was saying hard to pay attention to. In the last two days, her awkward smiles and erratic changes in tone have inspired parodies and ridicule.

And it made it all the easier to miss important things. I was distracted, too.

Luckily, Jonathan Katz wasn’t. He noticed something that didn’t sound right to him. And he dug. Katz is a freelance reporter with years of experience as an Associated Press foreign correspondent in Haiti and Mexico, where he covered things that would make Katie Britt cry real tears. He has a nose for what’s real and what’s not.

He didn’t have to dig far. Britt’s little Thursday night ruse was remarkably shallow. Here’s what he found.

During her remarks, Britt recounts having met a woman at the Mexican border who had been the victim of human trafficking and repeated sexual assaults.

“I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me,” Britt said. “She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.”

The first thing Katz noticed was that she referred to this victim as a woman, although this had happened to her beginning before she was a teenager. Had some time passed?

Katz looked back at contemporary accounts of Britt’s trip and he quickly found someone who lived the events recounted in Britt’s speech — Karla Jacinta Romero, an anti-trafficking activist who spoke on a panel with Britt and two other lawmakers.

But here’s the thing: In her speech, Britt gives the impression that this was recent, and she more than suggests it was something that happened here in the United States.

“We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it.”

Only, Romero’s story isn’t a recent one. The horrible things done to her happened 20 years ago, not during the Biden administration but during the George W. Bush administration.

Also, they didn’t happen in the U.S. or near the border, but farther in Mexico.

Katz shows his work, including the sites where he found this information. You can watch his video here and read what he’s shared on social media here and see for yourself.

Still, I wanted a more definitive answer to what should have been a yes or no question: Was this the woman Britt was speaking of?

I reached out to Britt’s spokesman Sean Ross for an answer. Here is what he gave me, which I’m including in its entirety:

“The story Senator Britt told was 100% correct. And there are more innocent victims of that kind of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever before right now. The Biden Administration’s policies—the policies in this country that the President falsely claims are humane—have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic level of migrants making the dangerous journey to our border. Along that journey, children, women, and men are being subjected to gut-wrenching, heartbreaking horrors in our own backyard. And here at home, the Biden Administration’s policies are leading to more and more suffering, including Americans being poisoned by fentanyl and being murdered. These human costs are real, and it’s past time for some on the left to stop pretending otherwise.”

I didn’t think the reply answered the question, so I asked him for clarification: “Thank you for the response, but to the question, the woman she said she met was Romero, correct?”

He hasn’t responded further.

Here’s why it matters. As I wrote after Britt’s speech, her career track follows a similar path to Alabama politicians before her, and now that path has taken her to the politics of fear.

Britt wants us to believe she has concern for folks like Romero, at the same time she advocates building an impenetrable wall that would keep victims of brutal cartels at bay. She focuses on heinous crimes committed by immigrants while ignoring that most of the folks struggling to cross into this country are fleeing in fear of that very thing.

She doesn’t make a distinction, because the politics of fear doesn’t leave room for nuance or compassion for people who weren’t born here.

Britt was chosen to give the State of the Union rebuttal because she was supposed to be a newer, younger face of her party, but what she said drew from something way back. Not 20 years, but further.

Older than Joe Biden. Older than Donald Trump.

This was old Alabama politics.

Kyle Whitmire is the 2023 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. You can follow him on Threads here and subscribe to his weekly newsletter, Alabamafication.