Saturday, March 6, 2010

BFFs Exchange Roles

Shown together in better days are former presidential Republican candidate John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. At one time, Graham had glued himself to McCain so closely that wags were calling him McCain's "Mini-Me." Both share a serious confusion about what Republicans should stand for, and when it is appropriate to stand boldly against the agenda of the liberals.

John the Baptist was supposed to have said to Jesus's future disciples: "As he must increase, I must decrease." McCain now finds himself playing John the Baptist to a less-than-perfect Republican prophet. McCain embarrassed himself in the presidential election, along with the Republican Party, and is quickly becoming old news. In addition, he is facing serious opposition from a Republican conservative in his bid to re-elected Senator from Arizona. With McCain flailing and gasping for air, the mainstream media have to find someone to replace him as their "favorite Republican." He has to be likely to remain in office for the foreseeable future, be willing to play Republican and play footsie with the liberals at the same time, and be unlikely to gain deep long-term conservative support or national acceptance. Who better than "Mini-Me?"

Graham seems to be enjoying the new-found position as premier RINO beloved by the press. They have been subtle enough not to call him a "maverick." Instead, they call him "reasonable," or a "consensus seeker." But they see enough of McCain in him to make him the front-runner for MSM patsy. And he has not let them down. Besides sounding like McCain's echo for several years, Graham has plenty of sellouts to his own name.

I'm not going to attempt an exhaustive study of Graham's "hands across the aisle." There have been plenty of examples, so I want to concentrate on just a couple of recent ones in which Graham has finally climbed out from under McCain's shadow and gone off on a frolic of his own. It turns out that Graham has been making other friends while we weren't paying attention. One of whom is Rahm Emanuel. While McCain merely objected to what he considered torture of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo, Rahm Emmanuel and his boss are determined to close the only safe place to put mass murderers on American soil. It appears that even though President Obama is dragging his feet on the issue lately, Emmanuel has recruited his friend Graham to assist him in working out a deal that will be palatable to Congress.

The vast majority of Americans, a sizable contingent in Congress, and a heavy percentage of South Carolinians want Guantanamo to remain open, and the recent revelation that one of the detainees released from Guantanamo is now a high-ranking terrorist leader hasn't altered that fact appreciably. But the editorial offices of The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, MSNBC and CNN want Guantanamo closed, and Graham is grateful for their encouragement of the Graham/Emmanuel alliance. Now if the two of them can just convince all those unreasonable fools in Congress to go along with them, the MSM will applaud them and Graham will have their good feelings to sustain him as he slays the dragons.

Last Sunday, Graham seems to have clinched the number one spot with the MSM as "favorite Republican." He doesn't seem to understand that "favorite Republican" is what they call you before the big election. Secretly, they are calling you "the sacrificial lamb." They did it so many times to McCain that one can only recall Charlie Brown failing to get the idea that Lucy was going to pull that football right out from under him. But since Graham studied under McCain, I suppose this is to be expected. So Graham followed in McCain's path and gave an interview to the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. Graham sounded so much like Al Gore that Friedman entitled his article "How the GOP Goes Green."

Graham rhapsodized about how terribly reasonable energy-rationing is. How else are we going to stop global warming? Don't worry about all those studies and recent revelations of wrongdoing on the part of the globaloney junk scientists. Graham believes that global warming exists, that government can do something about it, and it's time to start working together to prevent it. What could the New York Times possibly find to criticize in that?

For those of you who wisely avoid reading the New York Times, allow me to quote Friedman's love note to Graham: "Look at how he is received in colleges today. 'Instead of just being one more short, white Republican over 50,' says Graham, "I am now semi-cool. There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different.'" Aha, he's a "different Republican." That's good, isn't it? Any Republican who is welcome at today's college campuses should be taking a good look into the mirror to see if he's been replaced by an evil twin. But Graham revels in it.

Just as Graham slipped and showed his true colors, so did Friedman in accidentally telling the truth about Graham's enthusiastic support of General Electric's failing wind-turbine manufacturing project in Greenville, South Carolina. Of course, Friedman doesn't consider it a failure, and sees nothing odd about Graham hopping into bed with one of those evil corporations. GE can't be evil, after all, since it's involved in so many green initiatives. But GE is also a major player in the nuclear power industry, and if energy-rationing occurs, cheaper sources of energy like nuclear power will pour money into GE's coffers (and Graham's as well?).

Graham is also very cozy with Duke Energy (with a major manufacturing branch in South Carolina). And you know who heads Duke Energy? James Rogers, a former Enron executive. I guess Enron isn't poison if it means political and financial support. Rogers has been a major supporter of cap and trade legislation. Duke Energy, like GE, has all kinds of money invested in alternative fuel and green manufacturing, and will benefit hugely from cap and trade. Wind turbines and solar cells produce a piddling amount of energy, but the manufacturers and operators would be almost entirely unaffected by cap and trade yet well-rewarded for hewing to the green agenda.

Graham has said that cap and trade is "dead in the Senate." He must be OK on cap and trade if he says that. Well, you forgot the McCain rule of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Graham hasn't. Graham is working hard on his bipartisan reasonableness, so why not sabotage a solid conservative victory by proposing a bipartisan bill that does the same thing as the Democrat proposal, only less-so, and more slowly? Graham is working with John Kerry (D-Transylvania) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) on a compromise proposal. It's likely as DOA as the original, but look how much the great intellectuals at the New York Times love him for it. It means that Graham isn't one of those horrible Republicans who just say no and refuse to play nice with the Democrats.

It also serves the purposes of the MSM to praise the new guy and slap the old favorite. And McCain, in the middle of an epiphany (his second or third shift to the right during a Republican primary) responded in kind. McCain (he of McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy) calls the Graham-Kerry-Lieberman proposal "a joke." The MSM think it's a pretty good joke as well. But the joke's on Graham. He has just become the unwitting (or is it merely witless?) tool of the MSM's strategy of divide and rule.

Still, Graham has taken another page out of McCain's playbook. He doesn't have to run again until 2014, so he has plenty of time to play patty-cake with the liberals, then become a hairy-chested conservative before the next Senatorial race. He'll have plenty of time to show his fine credentials on fiscal policy by ignoring the direct effect of cap and trade in any form on the economy. And in the meantime, he can close his eyes, and drift away while listening to the siren song of the New York Times.

21 comments:

patti said...

well we know what happened to john the baptist, don't we...

to my dismay, a wind turbine manufacturing plant is being built in my beloved west texas. makes me crazy. interestingly, the thought i keep coming back to when thinking of this plant is what in the hell will they do with those ginormous blades when everything goes belly up?! (i have some ideas, but me thinks they are too over-the-line for our "leadership")

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

Is there some way to recall some of these RINO senators?

I am so tired of these has-beens and wannabes who never ever see a Republican Victory that they didn't want to defeat.

Writer X said...

I hope the people in South Carolina who've voted for Graham in the past are onto him, much like many of the people in Arizona who've voted for McCain in the past. It's unfortunate he's not up for re-election this year.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, The announced the other day that up to half of the guys released from Gitmo are back on the front lines.

In terms of Graham, he's the only reason Cap and Trade is still being talked about (though they are calling it dead again) because he reached across the aisle right after it died and said that he would support it in exchange for nuclear subsidies.

Nice article. . . bad Senator.

AndrewPrice said...

P.S. Writer X, sadly, he was just re-elected in 2008. He's safe until at least 2014. Ug.

Unknown said...

Patti: One of the earliest "wind farms" in California was placed in the Altamont Pass (the site of the notorious Rolling Stones concert where the Hell's Angels murdered one of the fans). Aside from the fact that it is an ideal wind location, the turbines produce minimal power, but they do have a side effect on the ecology so beloved of eco-freaks. There are a lot of small beasties in this farm and vineyard country (field mice, gophers, etc.). So the red-tailed hawks and golden eagles have thrived there for centuries. Small problem. They're single-minded. They see a delicate morsel skittering around on the ground, they do their magnificent dive, and get cut in half by the wind turbines. The rodent population is increasing dramatically, while the raptor population is quickly disappearing.

Unknown said...

Joel: If only there were such a way. Sadly, the recall procedures available in some states for getting rid of state representatives isn't available for federal offices. The only way to get rid of them during their terms is impeachment or removal by the body itself. And we know that it's almost impossible to get one crook to vote to remove a fellow crook. Particularly when the crook in question is "bipartisan."

Unknown said...

WriterX: Graham learned at the knee of the master. With four years left on his term, he'll navigate right at election time. But like McCain, he can do a lot of damage in the interim. I think public awareness, best exemplified by the Tea Party movement, may make Graham's term as the MSM's favorite Republican less successful than McCain's long reign. People are waking up to the phonies in their midst. Charlie Crist in Florida may be the test case of whether the RINO who tacks right at election time can still pull it off.

Unknown said...

Andrew: I keep wondering who actually thought that terrorists would see the error of their ways if we just kow-towed to them then sent them home. I mentioned the one example solely because he is apparently the number two or three guy for Al Qaeda now. But he is far from the only one to return to jihad, well-fed and healthy after his pleasant stay at our Jihad Hilton.

Graham did indeed use his voodoo to resurrect the dead body of cap 'n tax. I think you're right about it having a short existence as a zombie, and is once again dead. But then I said that about Obamapelosicare.

Unknown said...

Lawhawk. I hope we don't end up with Carly Fiorina as our McCain/Graham. Her past history with radicals could just put her right up there in the RINO pantheon.

Unknown said...

CalFed: I think Fiorina would be a candidate for the unofficial office of "favorite Republican" of the MSM. But so far, her campaign has been ineffective, and despite some fairly decent statements on fiscal responsibility, I don't see her as being enough different from Boxer to lead Californians to change horses. If we get Campbell or DeVore as the next Senator from California, nobody will mistake either of them for McCain or Graham.

HamiltonsGhost said...

Lawhawk--Beware of liberals in conservative's clothing would be a good motto for the Republican Party to follow for the foreseeable future. We're starting to drive them out from under the rocks, but the heat has to be kept on. They slip too easily back into their costumes near election time.

Unknown said...

HamiltonsGhost: Keeping the RINOs' liberal convictions in front of the people is one of the duties imposed on the blogs, since the MSM won't help us, and the good old boy network in both parties perpetuate their existence. Those of us who understand Reagan's 80% rule of thumb also know that some political stands are so far off the cliff that even an 80%er is disqualified from running again. The Guantanamo issue is probably not one of those sticking points, but it's not good. Cap and Trade, on the other hand, is so totally destructive that I would hesitate to vote for a candidate who voted in favor of any version of it, let alone one who attempted to revive it after it was essentially a dead issue.

StanH said...

The gig is up for the RINOs and they know it, witness Lindsey Graham doubling down on stupid, a true statist show of hand. But his BS doesn’t sell anymore…even, BFF McCain…is letting him twist in the wind, election year for “my friend,” …barf.

And for our part, as opposed to just screaming at the TV, the blogosphere erupts with quality counters to their insipid drivel. It’s proclaimed loud and clear, “he aint speaking for us!” …and I love it! This is one thing, I thank Barry for, bringing conservative America into the town square, leaving Washington proper shaking in their boots. “A funny thing happened on the way to the coliseum,” …the American people stepped into the street, and said not only ”NO,” …but “Hell No!”

Dig… John Kerry D(Transylvania) that’s perfect!

Unknown said...

StanH: I sometimes wonder if Obama isn't a gift to the American people. A people gets the form of government it deserves, and for awhile, we deserved The One. But it woke us up. It showed us what just one year of a demagogic false messiah could do to America and everything we stand for. If we are strong, stick to principle, and return to constitutional government by the people, we will come out OK. If we let down, or compromise our core principles, we will lose, and we will deserve it.

StanH said...

I see it as an opportunity. We finally have the statist fully exposed, and they don’t like it, oh well! I believe folks are still engaged and will erupt in November. The admonition would be not to become lulled into complacency, burn out too early, this will take several election cycles to fix, and close scrutiny by an engaged electorate…It’ll be fun! : )

Unknown said...

StanH: That which does not destroy us makes us strong. We let out guard down, we got complacent, we asked "how dangerous could he be?" Now we know. Like you, I see at least two election cycles before we can start to fix things properly. But at least we will be strong enough to stand athwart the tide of Obamism yelling "stop!" We are no longer a voice crying in the wilderness. We now have strength in numbers and strength of resolve. In the long run, I don't think we can lose.

StanH said...

I agree, an aroused American electorate is formidable indeed, and Washington knows this. They want us to go home, re-enter our lives, so they can get on with their progressive plan too screw America.

Unknown said...

StanH: I'm just full of quotes today (most people would say I'm usually full of something else). "No idea is so powerful as an idea whose time has come." And that idea is conservative, constitutional governance. It's amazing how an idea that goes back to the Founders can be submerged, laughed at, dismissed, and trampled on, only to return again, stronger than ever.

patti said...

law: dang that is grim. kinda like what is happening to us for allowing the plant/farms in the first place, eh?!

Unknown said...

Patti: It just seems that every time these saviors of the earth come up with another scheme, they've made things worse. That area I spoke of used to be very scenic, and had solid uses. On one side of the highway there were vast vineyards and on the other side, sheep grazed. Now it just looks like something out of a bad sci fi movie.

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