While busily attempting to make hay of EmailGhaziGate earlier this week, SC Senator Lindsey Graham made the astonishing claim that he’s never, ever sent an email. Now he’s explained why:
“What I do, basically, is that I’ve got iPads, and I play around,” Graham told reporters this weekend, according to Bloomberg News. “But I don’t e-mail. I’ve tried not to have a system where I can just say the first dumb thing that comes to my mind.”
The mind. It reels! Also, Graham’s excuse for eschewing email doesn’t make much sense because he has an account on Twitter, which seems designed to facilitate the global publication of stupid, unfiltered, context-free thoughts that result in massive misunderstandings and life-ruining pile-ons.
Maybe an aide runs it for him? And maybe he just never figured out the new-fangled email machine back in ’95 and has been waiting 20 years to make a virtue of that deficiency? Yeah, he’s “got iPads” alright, probably serving as trays to display his “at-home” cards.
ETA: Speaking of stupid, Erick Son of Erick posted a truly dimwitted response to the outrage over the 47 GOP Senators who beclowned themselves and America via an open letter designed to scuttle ongoing negotiations with the Iranians. TL;DR version: “I know you are, but what am I?”
But that’s not even the dumbest part: RedState has profanity rules! So Erickson titles his post “Tough Shiitake” and closes his screed with “Tough shiitake mushrooms for you.” Now that the dude who made “goat-fucking child molester” a famous insult is studyin’ up to be a preacher man, he’s got to forswear swear words.
But rather than consulting Mr. Thesaurus or extending Christian charity to ideological opponents, Erickson will follow the letter of the rule while violating its spirit. Erickson is exactly the kind of nasty, small-minded hypocrite who will thrive in an fundamentalist evangelical radio ministry, bilking little old ladies out of their Social Security checks while assuring them that Jeebus hates their enemies too. What an oat ducking file cholester!
Aimai
Plays around with ipads. Never hits the “send” button? NTTAWWT but doesnt that sound like a euphemism?
Baud
His dumb statements are well thought out beforehand.
OzarkHillbilly
Instead, he just says the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th….. ad infinitum thing to come into his head. Really Lindsey, it’s not working.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
You beat me to it – that means he has to think long & hard to say the stupid stuff he says!
But ol Linseed is just keeping with the modern tradition of the GOP. Science committee headed by a science denier, Human services committee headed by someone and every person for yourself randian . . .
the motto of todays GOP:
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
WAR IS PEACE
SLAVERY IS FREEDOM (yes, they got that one backwards but really works better for their policies.
Mathguy
Here’s Huckleberry Butchmeup using his “iPads”:
http://www.snotr.com/video/8965
Jim
These are the same people who decide what’s best for women without knowing much about female physiology, who decide what’s best for the internet without knowing the first thing about the internet, etc. etc. I fear for the future of our Republic.
NotMax
“How do I get the porn to show up on this thing?”
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: “www.foragoodtimecall.com”.
Mustang Bobby
He may not have sent any e-mails, but I’m sure he’s posted on certain websites and winked at Aaron Schock. (Who never winks back, the bitch.)
Derelict
So . . .
This man wants to be president and leader of the free world. And refuses to use one of the most essential technological tools of the day. This is roughly equivalent to FDR having refused to use the telephone or Lincoln refusing to use the telegraph.
Vote for Ms. Lindsey! Standard bearer of the Luddite Party!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: Andy Harris likes to wink.
Elizabelle
@Jim: I know. I wish we could just shut these things down. I wish we had a system to do that.
OzarkHillbilly
So that GA sanitation worker*** sentenced to 30 days for picking up the trash too early? The rest of his sentence was suspended after the rest of the world read about it. Who said the internet was good for nothing?
*** original Botsplainer link, I think.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Good star for the Internet.
NorthLeft12
As a citizen of the world outside the US of A it is truly scary and depressing that a complete fool like Senator Graham has any influence on world affairs.
Our Canadian right wing fools restrict themselves to making life more miserable for us Canadians ….well, except for that whole climate change deal. Sigh.
raven
Yay, they should pave today after 5 weeks of waiting!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’m Walking on Asphalt
NotMax
@raven
Congrats.
Now, who had March 10 in the betting pool?
raven
@NotMax: Now we get to go into renovation contractor mode too! The great thing is that our guy just started construction on his own tiny house! He and his wife had this really cool place that he built and, since their twins went to college, they are building a place that is about 700 square ft right next to the projects. Pioneers for sure.
Elizabelle
@raven: I would love to see some pics of that 700 foot house, once finished (or even in progress). Fascinated with living small, but well.
Elizabelle
NYTimes magazine profile of the non-emailing Lindsey Graham. He thought the Tea Party would blow over by the time he ran for re-election in 2014.
Now he’s feeding them red meat, perhaps he can see the difference between his esteemed self and those rubes, but it’s harder for the average observer to see it.
Lindsey Graham, This Year’s Maverick, July 2010 article by Robert Draper.
Um, OK, rolling that out in defense that maybe email is beyond his capabilities.
JenJen
How do you open a Twitter account or set up an iPad without an email account?
Elizabelle
Robert Draper wrote a July 2010 NYTimes magazine profile of Graham, in which the senator thought the Tea Party would die out. Perhaps he hoped that would happen before his 2014 re-election battle (when 4 of the little darlings ganged up against him, where one might have taken him out in the primary, were they able to think that through).
Graham’s now throwing red meat out to the Teatard base regularly, and the average American probably can’t tell the difference between him and the other elected troglodytes in his party. From Draper’s 2010 article:
Lindsey Graham, This Year’s Maverick
Rolling that out in his defense. Maybe he is incapable of sending email, or wary of what happens if he missends it.
Elizabelle
WordPress has just eaten two of my comments, long passages about Graham from a 2010 NYTimes magazine profile.
Could you check on them? Thank you.
MattF
Actually worse than I thought. I’d assumed that Graham just had staff do the email thang (‘you-all take care of the small stuff, like email, I’ll deal with the big stuff, like war and peace’)– but, as noted repeatedly above, he’s deliberately being stupid.
And as for Erick ibn Erick, one has to keep the grift in mind.
raven
@Elizabelle: These folks shit off their power a couple of years ago because they and the twins wanted to see what it was like!
raven
@Elizabelle: Yea but he can be a fucking officer!
Elizabelle
@raven: Love the typo. Sounds rocking! And they sound like a cool family.
@ Anne Laurie: thanks for liberating my comment. FYWP!
Elizabelle
@raven: Yup. Being a military legal beagle took him a long way.
Unlike his best bud, the military did not give him a few expensive airplanes to learn on.
Jerzy Russian
I am going to gay-marry this line.
raven
@Elizabelle: oops
Yatsuno
@JenJen: Protip: you can’t.
Cervantes
@JenJen:
@Yatsuno:
To be precise, what he said was that he has never sent an e-mail message — not that he does not have an account.
(Not that I could care less, in any event.)
SteveinSC
Look, the Lady Lindsey, South Carolina’s Second Openly Gay elected politician, does have a bit of a problem with the truth. For example he makes much of his military experience (he’s a lawyer) and as such could not function in a military officer’s environment without email. So, either he’s not the military reservist he claims he is or he’s used email. Maybe, ahem, he didn’t send any emails while on duty, but that good looking young lieutenant working for him did.
grandpa john
@OzarkHillbilly: Hey, thanks for posting about garbage collection and reminding me that today is our pickup day (city run ) and that I hadn’t put it out yet. No worry here about 5:00 AM, they don’t get to my house until somewhere between 12 and 1 PM
Mike in NC
This buffoon is currently hanging out in diners in Manchester, NH waiting for his presidential campaign to implode.
mellowjohn
sen. huckleberry j. butchmeup (h/t charlie pierce) “plays around”? that’s gonna break john mccain’s heart.
Elizabelle
@SteveinSC: That’s what I wondered.
I can see being a congresscritter and not sending email, but an Air Force Reserves colonel? A JAG officer? Who served a tour or two in Afghanistan? Not so believable, although he could have had his minions do so for him.
But how odd, not to use 21st century technology when you’re in the military.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I agree with Erik son of Erik on one point. As mushrooms go, shitakes are tough, but very tasty.
The Republic of Stupidity
Did he decide to have his mouth taped shut?
LAC
And here I thought Senator Beverly Leslie had his ” business partner” Benji send his emails.