It's Not a Straw Man If People Are Arguing For It

Tearing into Ezra Klein's latest defense of the JournoList, Andrew Sullivan writes:

It's telling to me that he sets up a straw-man. There was no "conspiracy" on Journolist, so far as I can tell, and I haven't claimed there was.

Of course, other people have. A quick search reveals many such accusations. At Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism, John Sexton wrote:

Turns out the real irony here is that people who viewed it as a “secretive conspiracy” were right.

At The American Thinker, Rick Moran:

The Daily Caller has acquired documents that show the conspiratorial nature of the list and its ability to massage and manipulate the news.

Over at beliefnet, Rod Dreher:

It is true that there is a sense of tribalism among some leading journalists on the Right that often prevents them from taking on conservative sacred cows, but I never saw anything remotely close to the Journolist conspiracy -- and would have been disgusted if I had, and left the room, so to speak.

I could go on. Sullivan is upset that Ezra Klein has not responded to Sullivan's complaints. This is a valid complaint. But then he argues that Klein is setting up a straw man. This is not true. He is arguing against a huge number of people who have claimed there was a conspiracy.