is_wp_error() and handling errors

WordPress can be inconsistent as to when is returns a WP_Error object and when it just returns false or string(0) when actually there was an error. I am not sure exactly what feedburner is returning that is not triggering a WP_Error from wp_remote_get() – but if you know wp_remote_get() will return an WP_Error, I would just set $result = new WP_Error( 'my-error' ); This is the same object that wp_remote_get() will return on error.