On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day shared its first two profiles of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who we noted was also making a run at the presidency. In our original profile, we talked about his background as a career military reservist and lawyer who is always spoiling for a war that he never seems to give much thought as to the why or how it will be fought, just that we should ABSOLUTELY fight it. Sen. Graham also is prolifically paranoid, worrying about terror threats both foreign and domestic, from roaming gangs after a hurricane that would require the citizenry to be armed with automatic weapons, or that every nation in the Middle East from Iran, to Iraq, to Syria has developed a nuclear weapon. He also justifies the permanent detainment of people at Guantanamo Bay based off the precedent set by internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, which is a pretty dark chapter of American history to use as a guideline, while claiming that Hilary Clinton “got away with murder” during the Benghazi attacks, acting like she was in on the attack on her own friend, Ambassador Chris Stevens. Oh, and speaking of his criticism of Hillary Clinton, he tried criticizing her about her usage of an e-mail server by boasting that he had never written an e-mail (because that’s exactly the sort of tech-savvy guy that should be president). Oh, and he later compared that to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, because e-mails are like getting a blowie from an intern, apparently.
Anyway, we started discussing Graham’s run for the presidency, including the time he tried defending his amigo, Sen. John McCain’s service record to insults from Donald Trump, and for his trouble, he had his cell phone number given out by Trump, publicly. Sen. Graham’s response was then to release a campaign video of himself destroying his cell phone with several implements (rather than just get his number changed). Graham has frequently been caught lying about facts surrounding 9/11 to shape immigration policy, and through the presidential debates (at least, the “kid’s table” debate he was in because his poll numbers were that awful) continued fear-mongering, using every question about any topic to segue into a discussion of ISIS and declaring, “The world is a battlefield and radical Islam is everywhere.”
First off, we’d like to bring up all the ways that Sen. Graham was the same paranoid lunatic in the past year:
- September 22nd, 2015: Graham votes for HR 36, the Pain Capable Unborn Child Act, which would ban abortion at 20 weeks.
- November 15th, 2015: Always hungry for war, Lindsey Graham comments on the terror attacks in Paris, France by insisting the United States send 10,000 ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, warning that “there’s a 9/11 coming”.
- December 3rd, 2015: Democrats produce some common sense gun legislation, that anyone who is found to be on a terror watch list during a background check should not be allowed to purchase a firearm or explosives (which they could use to carry out a terror attack). Well, Lindsey Graham loves the Second Amendment way more than he hates terrorism, as he voted against it.
- December 3rd, 2015: Graham votes for the GOP’s 62nd attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted it would.
- March 10th, 2016: Lindsey Graham supports the block on calling confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland… in spite of admitting there’s no real precedent for the maneuver by Republicans.
- June 20th, 2016: Sen. Graham again shows he loves the 2nd Amendment more than he hates terrorism, when he votes against Senate Amendment 4720.
Now, here’s the thing about CSGOPOTD and Lindsey Graham… we are kind of starting to like him. Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t still point out when he’s getting a case of the vapors, panicking about terrorists, and having to retreat to his fainting couch. He dropped out of the presidential race back on December 21st, 2015. And since, we’ve seen something we like to think of as “No F***s Left” Lindsey Graham.
It’s just refreshing, frankly, to see this new side of the South Carolina Senator, and refreshing honesty about how utterly insane and stupid his own party has become. Like when he said the Republican National Commitee “couldn’t run a one-car funeral” after the clusterf*** of a debate plan they had for 2016. Or the time he was speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition and flat-out admitted that the conservative obsession with being ultra-pro-life was out of hand, because “If you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans.”
Yeah, that happened. And how surreal was it to see Lindsey Graham of all people defend peaceful Muslims from the sort of ideas Donald Trump was putting forth, and saying, “Leave the faith alone, go after the radicals that kill us all”?
Who is this man? Where has he been for the past twelve years? He seems kinda cool for a Republican Senator. He compared the options of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as potential presidential nominees as as good of an option as being poisoned or being shot. By February, he admitted the GOP had gone “bats*** crazy” for voting for Donald Trump, and adding “If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.”
Graham went on the Daily Show and straight up admitted the Republican Party is screwed upin March. After Donald Trump started making racist statements towards a federal judge of Mexican descent, Sen. Graham advised his fellow members of the GOP to unendorse him, saying, “if anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it”. Sadly, they didn’t heed his advice, and he can now say things about Trump like, “No one knows where the bottom is at.”
So that’s our current dilemma… we don’t know if this sudden streak of candor from Lindsey Graham is the crazy part of his profile or not… because it probably means he won’t survive his next GOP Primary. Mind you, it isn’t until 2020, so he has time to reign it back in. We’re just hoping we seem more of “Cynical Bastard Senator Lindsey Graham” than the war-hungry, histrionic drama queen we did for most of the past decade.