In Which I (Briefly) Say Something Nice About Lindsey Graham

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Is Lindsey Graham one of that rare breed for which I hunt so diligently: the Sane Republican? If this was “Jeopardy,” the response would be, “What is, ‘Things You Never Thought You’d Hear Dusty Say,’ Alex.” Nevertheless, as we wait for the bachelor (not that there’s anything wrong with that) senator from South Carolina to make up his mind about whether he’s going to be the next one out of the Republican Clown Car, I find myself hearing some things from him that make me go, “Wait a minute, Lindsey Graham said THAT?”

For example, Graham apparently does not believe in your God-given right to use your firearm to revolt against the government. This sets him apart from, for example, Graham’s fellow senator, Ted Cruz.

In a fundraising email, Cruz asserts that “The Second Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.”

If you think about this for a second, this basically means the Second Amendment gives you the right not only to shoot robbers and rapists; it also justifies killing cops, soldiers and especially politicians who you feel are “threatening to your liberty.” Or, as prominent Republican fundraiser Ted Nugent put it: “Obama can suck on my machine gun.”

Asked about Cruz’s statement, an expression of what some law professors have dubbed the “insurrectionist” theory of the Second Amendment, Graham disagreed.

“Well, we tried that once in South Carolina. I wouldn’t go down that road again,” he said in an interview with Talking Points Memo. “I think an informed electorate is probably a better check than guns in the streets. I’m not looking for an insurrection.”

No “guns in the streets”? No “if ballots don’t work, bullets will”? What kind of mealy-mouthed, squishy Republicanism is this when threatening a second Civil War is off the table?

Then there are statements Graham made regarding immigration on a trip to New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago, as reported by Yahoo! News senior correspondent Jon Ward.

When engaging with a crowd at a Republican Committee meeting, Graham was confronted by a local politician who asserted that illegal aliens were receiving government benefits. This is an article of faith with the perpetually outraged, xenophobic Teahadist wing of the GOP, if you use the definition of “faith” that means “something someone has an unshakeable belief in despite the evidence.”

Sen. Graham immediately risked being burned at the stake for heresy: “You can say that, but you cannot get food stamps, you can’t get Medicare, you can’t get Social Security if you’re illegal.”

For over half an hour, according to the article, Graham tried to cajole and persuade his audience on immigration reform, asking questions like, “How many of you believe they should get paid over the table, not under the table? How many believe they should pay taxes?” He apparently forgot the basic principle that you can’t use reason to persuade people away from a position that reason never led them to in the first place. But even I have to give him credit for trying.

He’s also a believer in climate change, saying he’d like to “clean up the air and create a lower carbon economy over time.” He’s characterized that position as “commonsensical.” (See “using reason,” above.)

I’m not worried, though. I know that this tentative warmth I’m feeling toward Sen. Graham will only last until the next international crisis, when he goes on TV and starts foaming at the mouth and stomping his little feet about how we need to bomb, bomb, bomb and oh yes, “show leadership,” before whoever the boogeyman of the moment is “opens the gates of hell,” thus releasing a plague of locusts, demons and Sharia lawyers and leading to a thousand years of darkness and despair.

Oh, and Graham apparently still thinks we can intervene successfully in Syria by arming anti-Assad rebels, so long as we only arm the “right ones.” Because that’s worked so well in the past. And at some point, he’ll no doubt threaten to filibuster some unrelated nomination if he can’t open up yet another Benghazi witch hunt.

Lindsey Graham says, with rather odd precision, that he’s “91 percent sure” he’ll raise enough money to announce that he’s running in May. And I’m 100 percent sure that, if he does, he’ll tank after South Carolina, if he even makes it that far. He just doesn’t have the ideological purity primary voters demand.

Strange Priorities

Latest Newspaper Column:


So our Glorious Republican Overlords, despite having taken control of the state House, Senate and governorship, have been unable, as of this writing, to come up with a budget in time for the new fiscal year. And I see the House decided to celebrate its failure by taking the last week off while the rest of us had to work.

So let’s see what the party that promised to bring fiscal responsibility and jobs to North Carolina has been doing since the beginning of the year:

— A bill passed by the House and currently under consideration by the Senate would ban the use of “Shariah law” in proceedings in North Carolina courts.

Well, thanks be to God for that. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to contend with some bearded mullah coming into our courthouse and trying to argue that some defendant needs to have his hand cut off for stealing DVDs at Walmart. I’m certainly glad solving that non-problem was a bigger priority for the House than working on a budget.

It’s not just Shariah, however. That might show bigotry, not to mention ignorance. The use of any foreign law can be challenged, even if its use is provided for by contract. I’m sure that foreign companies will be even more eager to do business in our fair state after finding that out. Just as well. I never trusted the Dutch, anyway.

— Then, when the bill came to the Senate, they suddenly tried to tack on new restrictions on abortion clinics.

 “Sometimes these things come together at the last minute,” Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, told WRAL-TV. Because “the last minute” is when you want to start adding restrictions on what the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld as a constitutional right.
When asked point-blank during debate if he could “cite a health issue related to abortion” at a clinic compliant with current regulations, Republican Sen. Chad Barefoot had to admit, “I cannot.” But I guess they thought we needed to rush this through the day before the holiday anyway (while, let me repeat, we still don’t have a budget). I guess we don’t want to get shown up by Texas.

— A new bill mandates that all students in North Carolina public schools be taught cursive writing.

According to The Winston-Salem Journal, Rep. Pat Hurley of neighboring Randolph County became perturbed when thank-you notes she received from a class that visited her office were all printed. “After some research,” the story says, Rep. Hurley discovered that “many schools were leaving the decision to teach cursive up to individual teachers.” The horror!

Rep. Hurley, you look like a nice lady, but really? This is what you set your staff to researching in a time of fiscal crisis? Are CEOs of businesses who are thinking of bringing jobs to North Carolina going to turn to their minions and say, “Well, we were going to put the corporate headquarters in Randleman, but we found out the schools aren’t teaching cursive. That’s a deal breaker, people. Looks like we’re headed to Massachusetts”? We think not.

— A bill expands the state’s indecent exposure law to prohibit the exposure of “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, or the female breast.”

Rep. Rayne Brown, R-Davidson, said that her concerns were raised not by strip clubs or nudie magazines, but by topless protests for women’s equality in Asheville, a good hundred miles from her district. Still, Rep. Brown says, “some of her constituents were concerned” about the Ashevillian Feministas showing their naughty bits. I’ve always thought Davidson County was kind of pretty, but must be a paradise on Earth if that’s what all they’ve got to worry about.

And, of course, I’ve already written about the cockeyed proposal to require couples to wait two years instead of one to get a divorce and get hours of counseling in the meantime (without saying how it’s to be paid for). And the resolution to allow North Carolina to declare itself exempt from the First Amendment and establish a state religion.And the law that would allow people to carry concealed guns in bars (no way THAT could go wrong). The list goes on and on.

Congratulations, Republicans! You’ve managed to prove yourselves as feckless and ineffective as the Democrats you replaced. You’d think that a one-party state could manage to get at least some budget passed. But not, apparently, if that party is the GOP, who can’t seem to concentrate on what they claim is their core competency: fiscal responsibility.
They choose instead to fritter away time and energy (and taxpayer money) on a radical social agenda to push us resolutely back into the 19th century. The old bait-and-switch continues.