Senator Lindsay Graham Denounces Glenn Beck

South Carolina's closeted princess Senator Lindsay Graham took the unusual move of condemning Faux New's Glenn Beck and the birther movement. Would that more members of the GOP leadership - gay or straight - would wake up to the lunacy of the majority of the current GOP base. Ms. Graham is hardly a favorite of mine, but it is perhaps encouraging that even he is waking up to the fact that the public perception of the GOP is being severely damaged by the mindless and bigoted behavior of the base, including the birthers and the tea party crowd. Here are some highlights from Huffington Post:

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.) offered unusually blunt assessments of the fringe elements of his party and conservative media on Thursday, calling the popular and bombastic Fox News host Glenn Beck a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to American values.

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Appearing before a crowd of Washington's elite power players and opinion-makers, Graham spoke largely without filter, offering acidic takes on subject well beyond Beck. The Senator called the birther community that questions the president's U.S. citizenship "crazy" and implored them to "knock this crap off" so the country could get on to more important matters. I'm here to tell you that those who think the president was not born in Hawaii are crazy," said Graham, who went on to dispel another myth: that Obama is a closet Muslim.

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Graham also ventured to call "crazy" a recent article on Newsmax, laying out how a military coup could overtake the Obama administration.

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Reflecting comments made earlier in the day by his colleague and close friend, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Graham said he was deeply worried about "the passions of cable TV" whipping up the emotions of the public. "If you get rewarded for being a jerk you are going to keep doing it," he said, before labeling "Talk radio, MoveOn.org, and the 24-hour news cycle" as the main culprits in polarizing the nation.

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Unless and until a majority of the GOP Congressional leadership likewise grows some balls and condemns the lunatics and bigots within the GOP base, I suspect the slide in the Party's image with the general public will continue.