Lindsey Graham Is the Saddest Story in Washington

[Right_in_Virginia]

Lindsey Graham Is the Saddest Story in Washington
His fight for Brett Kavanaugh completed his transformation into Donald Trump’s slobbering manservant.
NY Times, Oct 7, 2018, Frank Bruni

[...]

That’s Senator Lindsey Graham you see at the head of the pack. That’s Graham you hear talking and talking and talking some more, in committee rooms and on stages and before the television cameras that he rushes to the way a toddler chases soap bubbles. His words are whichever ones guarantee a major role and a powerful patron, which means that these days he sounds like a more articulate echo of his golfing buddy: Donald Trump.

That wouldn’t, by itself, be cause to dwell on him. Washington is lousy with lackeys, and not even the maddest of kings thins their ranks.

But Graham is special. He really is. I can’t think of another Republican whose journey from anti-Trump outrage to pro-Trump obsequiousness was quite so illogical or half as sad, and his conduct during the war over Kavanaugh completed it. For the president he fought overtime, he fought nasty and he fought without nuance.


More:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/opinion/sunday/lindsey-graham-brett-kavanaugh.html

[Right_in_Virginia]

His fight for Brett Kavanaugh completed his transformation into Donald Trump’s slobbering manservant.

Who thinks like this?   

[endicom]

His fight for Brett Kavanaugh completed his transformation into Donald Trump’s slobbering manservant.

Manservant? Anyone miss the inference?

Graham seems to be having the time of his life so his sad state will have to be Bruni's problem.

[goatprairie]

Liberals are unable to hold the thought in their heads that a person might be able to differentiate love of justice from being in thrall to their elected leader.
I doubt Graham has become a Trump fanboy. Most likely he'll agree with Trump when he thinks he, Trump, is right and disagree when he thinks he's not.
Of course, idiot libs like Bruni believe conservatives championed Kavanaugh because Trump told them to do so.  He is quite ignorant of the fact that many conservatives, including most NeverTrumpers, defended Kavanaugh on principle.  Principle is something liberals lack. No liberal would challenge any of Obama's dictatorial decisions. They all, including Bruni, had their lips attached remora eel-like to Obama's posterior.

[Cyber Liberty]

 

[dfwgator]

Liberals are unable to hold the thought in their heads that a person might be able to differentiate love of justice from being in thrall to their elected leader.
I doubt Graham has become a Trump fanboy. Most likely he'll agree with Trump when he thinks he, Trump, is right and disagree when he thinks he's not.
Of course, idiot libs like Bruni believe conservatives championed Kavanaugh because Trump told them to do so.  He is quite ignorant of the fact that many conservatives, including most NeverTrumpers, defended Kavanaugh on principle.  Principle is something liberals lack. No liberal would challenge any of Obama's dictatorial decisions. They all, including Bruni, had their lips attached remora eel-like to Obama's posterior.

What Trump has done is to show the GOP that it's ok to fight back.

[Fishrrman]

Consider the source.
Read no further.

[Free Vulcan]

Frank Bruni - Pope, Personal Jesus, and Philosophical Dalai Lama.

And obviously a legend in his own mind.

[Absalom]

What isn't grasped is that the NYT is embittered for a fundamental
reason; it's dying yet refuses to accept it (as is the entire print media).
Light a candle for them!

[goatprairie]

What isn't grasped is that the NYT is embittered for a fundamental
reason; it's dying yet refuses to accept it (as is the entire print media).
Light a candle for them!

I'd rather light a bonfire under them.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I'd rather light a bonfire under them.

 

[jmyrlefuller]

Between McCain dying and fellow DC overage bachelor Anthony Kennedy retired, Graham is out of the shadows. He is the person he claimed to be in 2014.

[The_Reader_David]

Idiotic analysis.  It's not entirely part of a "Trump effect" that the Senate GOP "grew a spine" and fought back. It's largely because the Democrats were so over the top that it became clear that defense of civility and decorum in American politics had to be carried out not with a little sniping at Trump's often-ill-considered tweets, but with a full on defense of those norms against the radical left, in this instance their campaign of slander and character assassination against now Associate Justice Kavanaugh.

Graham in his marvelous oration against the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee showed exactly what we need -- a GOP that fights back, but with out descending into the gutter to do it.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Idiotic analysis.  It's not entirely part of a "Trump effect" that the Senate GOP "grew a spine" and fought back....

There's no other way to explain it @The_Reader_David  No other Republican president would have stood by a nominee under such politically charged assault.  The word would have gone out that it's time for the nominee to withdraw for "the good of his family". 

Instead the word given was I'm standing by him and want you to do the same. And the President's support was vocal, not private.   Don't underestimate the effect this had.  This combined with the egregiousness of the attacks pulled the GOP together as a team. 

[endicom]

There's no other way to explain it @The_Reader_David  No other Republican president would have stood by a nominee under such politically charged assault.  The word would have gone out that it's time for the nominee to withdraw for "the good of his family". 

Instead the word given was I'm standing by him and want you to do the same. And the President's support was vocal, not private.   Don't underestimate the effect this had.  This combined with the egregiousness of the attacks pulled the GOP together as a team.

IMO, one problem Republicans have had is being undermined by their own should they take a stand on some issue. Imagine if Trump had undermined Graham with an "Aw shucks, it ain't so bad." comment.

[mountaineer]

Consider the source.
Read no further.

Blahblahblah. I suspect the NYT just loved Graham when they saw him as their boy McCain's slobbering manservant.

[Victoria33]

@Cyber Liberty

He wanted Kav on the Supreme Court - end of story.  The writer of this story, is a nut case.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Hey nytimes: