Lindsey Graham - A Tired Queen Who Grows Ever More Delusional

It's getting to the point where I want to throw something at the television when I hear Lindsey Graham's whiny voice come on.  This peevish closeted queen's latest annoying rant focuses on wanting to know "what the president did personally when it came to the Benghazi debacle' while conveniently forgetting that the greatest security debacle since Pear Harbor occurred on the watch of the feckless George W. Bush and a GOP controlled Congress.  I truly wish someone would out this Nelly drama queen so he'd have to focus on the Christofascist voters of South Carolina who would turn on him lake a pack of rabid dogs.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Graham's disingenuous histrionics.   Here are highlights:

First, the Republican senator from South Carolina opposed Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary because of Hagel’s foreign policy views. Then he argued that Hagel had not produced sufficient background material. Now he’s arguing against Hagel because of the administration’s handling of the attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, last September — when Hagel was a professor at Georgetown University. 

“I am going to fight the idea of jamming somebody through until we get answers about what the president did personally when it came to the Benghazi debacle,” he said in the Senate TV studio Wednesday, a day before his unprecedented filibuster of a nominee to a national-security Cabinet post. 

“How do you respond to critics who say you’re just moving the goal posts?” CNN’s Dana Bash asked. .  .  .  .  “No!” Graham said, then explained how he was indeed moving the posts. “I’m going to hit you and keep hitting you, absolutely,” he said, raising his voice. Thumping the lectern, he added, “You better believe I’m not going to let this thing go.”

Fox News’s Chad Pergram pointed out that the treatment he was giving Hagel was in a “rare category.”  Graham made a fist. “Am I supposed to sit on the sidelines and be a good compliant Republican and just let this administration not account for what I think is a national security breakdown of monumental proportions?”

And I guaran-damn-tee you this: Graham’s antics have as much to do with events in Columbia, S.C., as with events in Washington. His sentiments are no doubt genuine, but the ferocity with which he has been attacking the Obama administration — taking a high-profile role on Benghazi, Susan Rice, Hagel and gun control — are helping him to repel a tea party primary challenge at home.  

The problem is Graham, to get through the 2014 primary, needs to say “no” more often now. And Congress can hardly afford for one of its few remaining dealmakers to take an obstreperous turn. But perhaps Graham should be given some slack. The Republican primary system has gone haywire, and this may be the only way a sensible lawmaker can survive it. 

Not too long ago, Graham had been in deep trouble with South Carolina conservatives because of his talk about climate-change legislation, his votes for both of Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, his criticism of the Bush administration’s wiretapping and interrogation programs, and his championing of “Grahamnesty” immigration reforms.

Graham, who has voted the conservative line 90 percent of the time over his career, argues that his new positions are consistent with his previous ones — and they are. But the difference is in the emphasis. In order to survive the Republicans’ backward primary system, Graham needs to de-emphasize anything that might make him appear to be reasonable.