While partisans of the House of Cantor scheme for Boehner’s blood (or whatever the fluid is that gives him that distinctive, possibly teratogenic glow), the NYTimes has a tonguebath ready for “This Year’s Maverick”. In the blue-collar Bronx neighborhood where I grew up, a politician who took pride in his ability to “run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” was known as a trimmer, and that was not a term of respect:
Graham is not a morning person, but at that hour in May he was thoroughly revved up… Big issues rattle from his brain and out of his inert, somewhat glassy-eyed face as if dispensed by a gum-ball machine. Among these was the Kerry-Lieberman climate-change bill — or “energy independence” bill, as he preferred to call it for the sake of attracting conservative support. (“To me, it is about jobs, not polar bears!”) After attending 183 meetings and devoting more than 120 hours of scheduled Senate time to the matter, Graham dropped his co-sponsorship of the legislation when the Senate majority leader, the Democrat Harry Reid, disclosed in late April that his priority would be passage of an immigration bill. (Reid later reversed his decision.) Graham promptly called Reid on the phone and accused him of shifting the legislative calendar to woo Hispanic voters in Reid’s uphill re-election struggle, and then, according to Graham, the two exchanged “a few F-bombs” before hanging up…
__
“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said… On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious,” he recalled. During a later meeting, Graham said he challenged them: “ ‘What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?’ . . . Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.”
[…] __
There was a time, barely more than a decade ago, when Lindsey Graham was a darling of the right wing — a Newt Gingrich acolyte who in 1994 delivered to the Republicans a House seat that was occupied by a Democrat since 1877; who at one moment was an unremarkable Huck Finn look-alike seated at an overflow table beside the House Judiciary Committee dais next to Sonny Bono’s widow, Mary, and then a moment later burst out of his cocoon during the Clinton impeachment hearings with that rhetorical gem, “Is this Peyton Place or Watergate?” Four years later in 2002, he easily won election to the Senate seat that was occupied by Strom Thurmond for the previous 48 years. But just as Thurmond could himself defy orthodoxy now and then, Graham signaled his waywardness early on. Disillusioned by Gingrich’s infidelities to his own Contract With America, Graham joined several others in an attempted coup against Gingrich, who was then speaker of the House…
[…] __
Certain elements of Graham’s dance routine with the White House are available for public viewing. Graham has already signaled that he would be receptive to confirming Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court this summer. First, however, he will extract his pound of flesh. “I want to make the case that she’s a liberal,” he told me. “Part of this whole exercise is to say to the public that if you want liberal judges, fine — vote for a liberal candidate for president. If the policy Harvard had toward military recruitment upsets you, you need to understand that liberals think that way.”…
__
On other matters, Graham has unabashedly supported the Obama administration. He credits the president for his attentiveness to Pakistan, for sending more troops to Afghanistan and for recently declaring a moratorium on deep-water drilling while remaining open to future domestic oil exploration. These, of course, are among the issues on which Obama has disappointed his liberal supporters. I asked Graham if he felt that he had taken the full measure of the president. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I got comfortable with Bush. I’m not comfortable with Obama.”
And speaking of ‘getting comfortable’, there’s one thing Senator Graham wants the whole world to know:
During a South Carolina Tea Party rally this spring, one speaker created an uproar by postulating that Graham supported a guest-worker program out of fear that the Democrats might otherwise expose his homosexuality. (Graham smirked when I brought this up. “Like maybe I’m having a clandestine affair with Ricky Martin,” he said. “I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry.”)
Dear Senator Graham: When you are lurking in the cloakroom stall, a couple of your colleagues enter, one says: “Lindsey Graham — what a dick!” … and his friend agrees, “HUGE asshole”… they may not be discussing your sexual proclivities.
__
Hunter Gathers
Anyone notice that this tactic worked ?
burnspbesq
This is South Carolina we’re talking about. Lindsey Graham is the best one can reasonably hope for.
Will
Lindsey Graham gets photographed regularly walking around Charleston holding hands with a special male friend. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but…
Church Lady
Lovely ending. I’m sure you’re proud of yourself for you wit.
Legalize
Lindsey Graham: I don’t hope he dies in a house fire. That’s about the best thing I can say about any member of the Confederate Party.
Brian J
I’m not sure if it’s a true tongue bath; I’ll have to read it all to be certain one way or the other. But going through the first few paragraphs alone, I almost want to wonder why he isn’t a Democrat, or at least an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats. At least on domestic policy, he seems to actually want to solve some problems. He goes back and forth between trying to get something done and then backtracking so he can avoid being targeted by people in his own party, at both the state and federal level. If people like Ben Nelson, who seem to do nothing but thwart initiatives of the president, can be Democrats, why can’t people like Lindsey Graham, assuming he would actually be a plus to the party?
El Cid
Lindsey Graham is a rebel for continually promising to support Democratic legislation if only they’ll change it to his preferences, and then throwing a hissy fit on why he can no longer vote for it. Although he’s not the only Republican who does this.
eemom
Hey, Anne L, mind if I ask where in the Brawnx you grew up? I’m from there myself — the unrich part of Riverdale.
JGabriel
Teratogenic?
Damn, that’s harsh.
Kudos.
.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Get it? ‘Cos in ReaLAMErica all the kw33rs live in San Francisco. Har har har!
Whatever. I’m willing to bet this will be the least offensive comment from the GOPers in the next … three election cycles.
ellaesther
I was actually kind of charmed, God help me, by the self-deprecating humor in his denial. It’s the best denial I’ve ever heard, in fact, because it’s funny.
TR
Lindsay Graham’s sexual orientation is common knowledge in SC political circles. But I guess plausible deniability is good enough for that state’s voters.
Zifnab
@Brian J: He’s friends with a collection of business interests in South Carolina that aren’t keen on living in the stone age. And he’s no Jim DeMint. Which is nice, and all.
If more Republicans would break loose from the Senate caucus, I’m confident that Graham would follow suite. But with the 59-41 Democratic Minority, I just don’t see that happening.
Things will only get worse after the mid-term elections.
Indie Tarheel
This is what ticks me off about him – he’s obviously not certifiably insane; nor does he seem to be an unintelligent man. Which means he KNOWS BETTER. What a waste.
GVG
They do think he is a homosexual and he has to know it. I don’t know and don’t care, but a lot of active religious types do think it and target him. There is a continual whisper about it on line. “They” say that about Charlie Crist too. I’ve seen such high school rumors turn out to be totally wrong before but the people who spread them never notice when their proven wrong. I’ve seen it turn out to be true also but still…you have to remember these on line rumors are pretty much not verifiable ever.
Lindsey has nothing to lose by telling the tea party off unlike other Republicans. There was never any chance he’d get their support no matter how nice he spoke to them. I hope he’s right about them dying out. the demographic trends are favorable but I’m not comfortable yet.
Ash Can
@Brian J:
That was my takeaway too — that he’s trying to make himself a moving target, for everyone but particularly for the people in his own party. Strange days indeed.
liberal
I really liked this comment:
[emphasis added]
eemom
WILD thing. You make my heart sing. You make EVERYTHING groovy.
Huckleberry’s new soundtrack.
liberal
@Brian J:
Look at the voting records. Americans for Democratic Action give him a score of 15% in 2009, as compared to say Nebraska’s Nelson (D) of 70%. (BTW, Maine’s two “liberal” Republican senators got 65%. I’ve read elsewhere that the most conservative dem is now more liberal than the most liberal Republican (in the Senate at least).)
liberal
@Zifnab:
That’s true. ADA gave DeMint a 5% rating. Huckleberry’s 15% is SO MUCH BETTER…I guess you could say 3 times better. /snark
Not likely, at least given those 2009 ADA ratings.
kc
It’s gonna be funny when someone runs against Graham from the right in the next primary, and his fellow SC Senator DeMint endorses his opponent.
kc
@Zifnab:
Jeez, talk about a low bar.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Which is odd, particularly from Southeners. The South regularly produces str8 guys who make Mr. Humphries look butch.
Zifnab
@TR: Or maybe they honestly don’t give a fuck.
Staging a Comeback
This ongoing, lying, lazy-journalist meme that Lindsey Graham is a “moderate” Republican infuriates me. What, *exactly*, of any import has Lindsey Graham helped this administration accomplish? When push comes to shove, he votes with his Tea party, so in practical matters he’s no different than they are. To portray him as anything but a wolf in sheep’s clothing is lazy and disingenuous, and the popular media should be embarrassed for perpetuating this myth.
Brian J
@Zifnab:
I wonder how much worse they get. I’m a big believer that things equal out in the end, so if the Republicans keep pushing the “obstruct and do nothing” line, it will eventually kill them because they will lose big. I don’t know know if they will take back the House or Senate. My gut tells me that it could be very close in the House but not in the Senate, but no matter what happens, they will feel encouraged to keep acting like childish assholes. And that, I think, will make them lose whatever gains they’ve made in 2010 in 2012, when Obama is up for reelection.
@liberal:
I wonder how much of that is based on how he really feels versus how he feels he needs to vote based on what his party’s base wants him to do. Besides, if felt strongly enough on some issues to switch parties, nothing would prevent him from voting with his old party on other issues. What’s the difference between him voting against stimulus measures as a Democrat and voting against them as a Republican?
@kc:
Jim DeMint inititially struck me as an almost cartoonishly slimy bastard when I first heard of him. Nothing he’s done in the mean time has changed that impression.
Staging a Comeback
@Zifnab:
Is that all it takes to not be considered an asshole these days?
El Cid
@Staging a Comeback:
A week or so ago I watched some Washington Moonie Times hack on C-Span’s Washington Journal deny a caller’s complaint that he was a far right winger by emphasizing that, after all, he had condemned David Duke.
High standards.
Staging a Comeback
@El Cid:
A progressive Republican is now defined as one who opposes lynching, evidently.
NonyNony
@Brian J:
Because he’s from South Carolina. If he were a Democrat he never would have gotten into office because from what I can tell the South Carolina Democratic Party is about as useless as tits on a bull. And going Independent isn’t really something a politician wants to do – it’s something that gets forced upon them by their party base – see Specter, Arlen and Lieberman, Joe.
Graham is a Republican, but he’s one of those Republicans that the party is leaving behind as it shifts. We are talking about a party where fucking Bob Bennett is no longer conservative enough to be a representative of the party, so we’re talking pretty damn conservative. Lindsay has to stick it out until 2014 – that’s when his term is up. If he thinks he’s going to lose his primary to a Nutbagger he might decide to go the Joe Lieberman/Charlie Crist route to office and go Independent. But it’ll depend on what the political landscape is at the time, I think.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Staging a Comeback: Only if the rope would be paid for with gubbermint money.
NonyNony
@Staging a Comeback:
I don’t see Zifnab saying that Graham isn’t an asshole – he’s saying that Graham isn’t Jim DeMint. Which isn’t high praise since I personally know barnyard pigs who also aren’t Jim DeMint and are much more fun to be around than he could be.
Frankly though, I don’t think you get to be in the Senate without being a bit of an asshole. I think it’s a job requirement – you don’t climb to the top of your state’s political hierarchy without being an asshole of some sort.
El Cid
@Staging a Comeback:
Let’s not get all crazy, here — just because a Moonie distances himself from David Duke doesn’t mean he’s opposed to Real Amurkans spreading justice when the system won’t, wink wink!
Brian J
@NonyNony:
Wouldn’t the party be sprung to life, to the extent that it’s dead, by having Graham join?
liberal
@Brian J:
I’m not sure it’s useful to consider how a politician really “feels”. When a politician does things deeply wrong, does it matter whether he’s just stupid, or whether he’s just an opportunist? In some sense the latter is more evil.
My impression is that George Wallace originally wasn’t really a racist, but then some guy ran against him from the right in some election, and he vowed to never be “out-n***ered again”. To me, that kind of opportunistic bigotry is actually worse, since he presumably knew it was wrong.
Anyhow, I’d put good money on the proposition that in SC, the base is pretty much the entire party.
tim
Oh please. And oh please again.
Miss Lindsey is as gay as the Christmas goose. Every time I see that prissy backstabber in print or online or TV my gaydar goes so far over the red line that it has to be rebooted and recalibrated. Which latter process feels really good, but that’s fodder for another comment…
So now that Miss Linds has gone on record as not being gay, I’m hoping someone in SC who has had a strong enough stomach to sleep with her (eeewwwww), will go to someone in the press with a strong enough spine to print the truth, thereby hopefully bringing down this pitiful walking pile of shit of a closeted warmonger/liar.
Other than that, I wish her well.
ellaesther
@Indie Tarheel: Yup. Me, too.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Every time I see that prissy backstabber in print or online or TV my gaydar goes so far over the red line that it has to be rebooted and recalibrated.”
I’m intrigued on the reboot/recalibration process. What do you use for the calibration standards? As guys opening bragging they’re 100% straight usually aren’t.
However, gaydar appears to be extremely accurate. I’ve lived in a city known for its large gay population for over a decade and have never been hit on by a guy. Which either means I’m emitting high levels of heterosexual radiation, or am just too damn ugly.
Anne Laurie
@eemom: Fordham Road / Jerome Avenue, off the Major Deegan.
Corner Stone
@tim:My gaydar pegged upon reading your comment.
satby
@Indie Tarheel:
That’s actually what ticks me off about a lot of Repugs, not just Graham. They made the decision to stick solidly with their party as it ran off to crazy-town, and stick it to their country.
Chrurch Lady: why, yes, I bet she is. As she should be.
eemom
@Anne Laurie:
wow — about 15 minutes away.
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq:
Agree with Burns. South Carolina is insane and Lindsey Graham is the best you are going to get.
He has to be so relieved his primary was in 2008 and not now. The crazy ass upstate Teabaggers would do him in.
Splitting Image
@tim:
The fact that he sets off your completely miswired “gaydar” is actually a very good indicator that Graham is straight.
By the way, have you apologized for smearing Elena Kagan yet? Apologies if I missed it. Please provide a link.
eemom
Ya mean we’re NOT gonna get that Green guy?
4jkb4ia
I just thought of this, but IF Kagan knew, or could guess, Graham’s intent to expose her as a liberal, then it is less likely that she was cornered.
(EW’s point was that “She will stand up to Scalia/build consensus with Kennedy” was a weaker argument because of that exchange. You don’t have to choose whether Kagan is stupid or evil to claim that)
(On Russ Feingold: Absolutely he could have come back (remember he went FIRST) and asked her to walk through some of the cases on military commissions, Milligan, Quirin etc. The 48 people that we are going to give the minimal legal process IMVVHO are a more pressing issue than habeas at Bagram. You are not asking her to grade a case. You are asking her to look at the landscape of where the law is now and maybe you can learn something from the way she is thinking about it.)
satby
@Splitting Image:
Thinking someone might be gay would only be a “smear” if there was something wrong with being gay. Which there isn’t.
someguy
Lindtse Graham
Lisa K.
@eemom:
If I had the ill luck to be from SC, I would vote for the Green guy before I’d vote for Jim DeMint.
BruinKid
@kc:
Well, it IS South Carolina, after all. They’re known for setting the bar very low.
BruinKid
@burnspbesq:
Yep. Remember who he beat in 2008? “Democrat” Bob Conley, an ex-Republican who SUPPORTED Ron Paul for President in 2008. He left the GOP because of the Iraq War and immigration. Conley beat actual Democrat Michael Cone by only 1,058 votes (50.3%-49.7) in the Democratic primary. Now THAT was an election where Republicans voting in the Democratic primary may have pulled a Rush Limbaugh-style Operation Chaos on us, because it was in June, and separate from the Presidential primaries.
Oh, and Conley was also extremely anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and preached “fidelity to the Constitution”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. He was actually MORE conservative than Graham, and so people like Jim Clyburn even endorsed Graham over Conley.
So you had a weird situation where most of us WANTED Graham to win his re-election, because Conley would’ve been an even worse headache than Lieberman or Ben Nelson on their most assholish days.
Oh, South Carolina. :-|
CrowsSong
@satby: Some might argue that insisting that someone is gay when they have stated that they are not is calling them a liar. I’d consider that a smear.
tim
@Corner Stone: @Corner Stone:
as well it should. ;D
tim
@Splitting Image:
The fact that he sets off your completely miswired “gaydar” is actually a very good indicator that Graham is straight. By the way, have you apologized for smearing Elena Kagan yet? Apologies if I missed it. Please provide a link.
Two thoughts in response to your thilliness: My gaydar is flawless. Graham is as straight as am I, which is not at all, and why in the world would I apologize to Mr. Kagan Closet Case? She’s as gay as she was three weeks ago.
Oh, and it’s telling that you regard calling someone gay to be a “smear.” Just because you are a bigot doesn’t mean everyone else is.
Corner Stone
@tim:
I’m always happy to be right.
But I for one don’t think there’s an issue of whether LG is or is not gay. And your post made me wonder about the dismissive vitriol.
Maybe if he’s gay he should publicly own it. I don’t know, and it’s not for me to say.
But whether he did or not, or is or is not, I have a hell of a lot more things to go after him for.
I guess I’m saying he’s an asshole for many reasons, and I just don’t care about anything else.
tim
@Corner Stone:
That’s fine, but I’m saying that Linds clearly IS gay, and he just denied it in print, and since he is a vile political presence for many reasons in addition to supporting the anti gay republican party, I hope someone uses this opportunity to bring things to a head, so to speak, and call a queen a queen.
In which case perhaps the Lindster would finally be hounded from office. But maybe not; it’s so weird to me how some closet cases manage to evade scrutiny even when they exist right in the middle of a homophobic environment from which they draw their sustenance. Clearly there is a lot of don’t ask dont’ tell no matter what going on in the press and elsewhere.
bemused
I thought it was interesting when Graham said he asked a worked up tea party group what they would do with the country if they got it back & dead silence. A very good question for those people. If true, he is probably the only R that has ever done that that I know of.
Splitting Image
@satby:
Tim isn’t only calling them gay. He’s calling them liars. And that is a smear.
@tim:
See above. It’s one thing to get the impression someone is gay. It is quite another to bluntly accuse them of lying about it and taking offense when someone points out that you haven’t presented any evidence to support your initial claim.
If Graham and/or Kagan are gay, prove it. Busting them in an airport washroom trying to pick someone up will suffice. Busting them with a prostitute will do. Catching them taking a vacation with a “baggage handler” they found on a dating site will do.
At this point their “gayness” is strictly an urban legend. Everybody knows someone who knows someone who knows something certain about it, but the combined power of the internet can’t put the full story together.
I might add that being gay doesn’t make you less of an asshole for claiming to know something you don’t, any more than it excuses Andrew Sullivan.
tim
@Splitting Image:
That’s you, isn’t it, Miss Linds?
Wile E. Quixote
@tim:
What about Mitch McConnell? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wile E. Quixote
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
Dude, you’re probably too damn ugly, just like me. I’ve been hit on by two gay men in my life but both of them were extremely drunk.
robertdsc
A “mistaken” Predator drone strike would be fine by me.
The illusion of his moderation is disgusting. When the chips are down, he votes GOP. He’s a sabotaging traitor.
Flugelhorn
Annie,
I am confused as to the purpose of your cut and paste here. Other than your two snarky sentences, what exactly were you trying to contribute?
Splitting Image
@tim:
You can’t tell a Canadian from a South Carolinian and you expect people to believe you can tell at a glance which men in a group are gay?
I notice you still haven’t linked to your apology to Kagan yet. I’m assuming it exists in the same plane of existence as the evidence that Graham is gay?
tim
@Splitting Image:
Won’t be linking to your requested apology because it does not exist and won’t be doing so anytime soon. The lady is gay. Common knowledge here in Boston. You’re the one who has a problem with it. Me, I think of it as a compliment.
Gaydar exists, and mine rocks. Deal with it.
Have no idea what your South Carolinian vs Canadian babbling is about…
tim
@Wile E. Quixote:
What about Mitch McConnell? Inquiring minds want to know.
Every time I try to aim my gaydar in Mitch’s direction, I throw up in my mouth a LOT and that tends to make the readings unreliable.
Tim O
HEY, I got shunned for swish-Boating! WTF!?
Splitting Image
@tim:
Can’t do anything about your gaydar except link to Slacktivist’s excellent essay on bearing false witness.
You know perfectly well that you’re spreading a lie. Two lies actually (so far). If everybody in Boston had proof that Kagan was gay, they would be able to cite it as proof instead of saying “everybody knows”. Ditto South Carolina and Lindsey Graham. Neither of them is a blank slate in their home cities.
Want some advice? If you actually want people do believe Kagan (or Graham, for that matter) is gay? Prove it. Quit asking people to have faith in your own infallible awesomeness and produce some evidence that one of them has had a same-sex relationship. You can’t, and so you’re reduced to fantasizing about Graham maybe slipping up now that he’s definitively on record as saying he’s straight.
tim
@Splitting Image:
well, dear heart, we’re at an impasse. I believe Kagan and Graham are closet cases. You don’t. So why don’t we both decide to tell the other to fuck themselves and let it be. What’s your angle here?
BTW, I also believe that George W Bush totally blew off his national guard service, yet for some mysterious reason no one has come forward with definitive proof of that. Or, let me revise that a bit: no one the MSM is willing to cover has done so. All I know is that elites in this country are often able to hide their secrets in broad daylight, Emperor’s Clothes and all, and so far Elena and Lindsey are two of them. Someday maybe their luck will end.
But again, why is it such an affront to you personally if I say they’re gay?
P.S. I went your satanic cult link. Again with the comparing being gay to being a member of the legion of the damned. You’ve got serious issues. Also, too, I’m all for gays on the supreme court and in the senate; I’d just very much prefer them to be honest about who they are.
Thanks!
Wile E. Quixote
@tim:
Damn! Mitch has deployed active gaydar countermeasures. He probably got them from Larry Craig, who no longer needs them.
Corner Stone
@Splitting Image:
This sounds a little like you’re asking for the kind of photos they took of the Senator in The Godfather.
Corner Stone
@Wile E. Quixote: Aluminum chaffe packets to defeat AAA? Thermo flare counter-measures?
Damn. The gays have gone high tech.
Sheila
Lindsay Graham should be remembered for being one of the 12 angry men and Sonny Bono’s consort who presented President Clinton with the articles of impeachment. As for his denial of being gay, the fact that he thinks it matters says everything that needs to be said about the gops in regard to gender issues.