Even Lindsey Graham Doesn't Deserve This

[babylonsister]

I have to go with Steve Benen here; sometimes seeing rethugs eating their own is not amusing.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_04/023428.php

EVEN LINDSEY GRAHAM DOESN'T DESERVE THIS.... I'm not generally in the habit of defending Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), but some of the abuse he's been receiving from the right is ridiculous.

Over the weekend, an even-crazier-than-usual Tea Party event was held in Greenville, South Carolina, and it was, by one account, "probably the craziest, most violence-strewn Tea Party event so far."

Put it this way: former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) was the keynote speaker, and he called on Americans to send President Obama "back" to Kenya. He was preceded by a Baptist preacher who said he's prepared to "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what {the military} trained me to do."

But it was William Gheen, the head of a right-wing, anti-immigrant effort called Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, who's remarks were especially ugly. Lindsey Graham wasn't on hand for the event, but Gheen addressed the senator directly: "I'm a tolerant person. I don't care about your private life, Lindsey, but as our U.S. Senator I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure you being gay isn't it."

Today, Gheen's outfit doubled down.

The national border security organization known as Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is officially calling for US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to make his homosexual lifestyle public knowledge in the interest of political integrity and national security...

"US Senator Lindsey Graham is gay and while many people in South Carolina and Washington DC know that, the general public and Graham's constituents do not," said William Gheen President of ALIPAC. "I personally do not care about Graham's private life, but in this situation his desire to keep this a secret may explain why he is doing a lot of political dirty work for others who have the power to reveal his secrets. Senator Graham needs to come out of the closet inside that log cabin so the public can rest assured he is not being manipulated with his secret."

The "manipulated" line is especially inane -- as the group sees it, if Graham is trying to work constructively with Democrats on a handful of issues, it may be because Dems are blackmailing him.

For the record, I neither know nor care about Graham's private life. His sexual orientation is irrelevant -- and the attacks are pathetic in either case.

—Steve Benen

[ellie]

1. That's distasteful.

The teabaggers must think the majority of the country agrees with them because their lunacy is non-stop.

[The Magistrate]

2. He Deserves It, Ma'am

The mills of God grind slow but exceedingly fine, and this wretch was one of the Impeachment managers in the attempted coup back in '98: there is no fate too harsh for those prominent in that outrage.

[av8rdave]

3. Pardon my french, but...

I don't give a rat's ass what his orientation is. As to his political behavior, agreed...he hasn't done a lot of good.

[The Magistrate]

14. His Sexual Orientation Does Not Matter To Me, Either, Sir

What matters is that he suffers, and that that suffering be extreme and undignified. How this comes about is of no importance to me.

[Hekate]

16. Indeed, Magistrate. Indeed.

:grr:

[malaise]

25. Bingo

We have a classic proverb for moments like this one - same knife stick goat stick sheep!!
I have no sympathy for a single ReTHUG hypocrite.

[struggle4progress]

11. Gay-bashing is ugly prejudicial stuff. It has no place in American political discourse.

Graham's adult private life -- whether he's gay or straight or uninterested or likes to dress up like a big fuzzy green frog or whatnot -- are simply his own business and nobody else's. I usually don't much like his politics -- and that's where the public conversation should stay. I'd probably make an exception to that rule, if he's arrested for peeping in other people's windos or somesuch, or he's an intolerable noisy hypocritical blowhard, but as a general rule I'm tired of hearing the nonstop Eek! Giblets! as a substitute for rational policy discussions

[The Magistrate]

28. You Probably Are A Better Person Than Me, Sir

How an enemy comes to grief does not trouble me. Should it be cruel or unfair, in fact, that is all to the good....

[struggle4progress]

31. The gaybaiting, of course, reinforces a climate of intolerance that hurts many folk,

regardless of whether I approve of a particular individual or not. I do not claim to be a better person than you -- but when the lunatics escape from the asylum and start gnawing on the grumpy fellow up the street, I am not really inclined to cheer the lunatics. Tomorrow, or the day after, there will still be plenty of time for me to tell the grumpy fellow up the street what I actually think of him

[The Magistrate]

34. If The Grumpy Fellow Up The Street, Sir, Courted The Lunatics And Pandered To them For A Career

Then their gnawing him down to bones on any given Teusday afternoon takes on the lineaments of sound justice, which it is my custom to cheer in all its splendid variety of form.

[raccoon]

38. ITA! I'm no fan of Graham's, but some DU'ers, whom I would have expected better behavior from,

give him a hard time for allegedly being gay.


Once again, I am like totally embarrassed this happened in my neck of the woods. :puke:

Is there something in the water here that makes people such dumbasses? Good thing I use a Brita filter.

[DevonRex]

48. So were Clinton's. Yet Graham chose to attempt a coup based on HIS private life.

Goose, gander, yada yada yada.

[struggle4progress]

49. Let's make a careful distinction. Gay-baiting perpetuates ugly prejudice and

a culture of intolerance: by accepting it, we help keep life miserable for lots of innocent people. The issue here is not whether I think the Senator has often been wrongedheaded or sanctimonious (which I do), nor is it whether I'm happy to see the rightwingers rapidly attacking their own (which I am). The issue is that -- like its cousins redbaiting and jewbaiting and blackbaiting -- gaybaiting is a nasty activity, that we ought not accept

[DevonRex]

52. I don't accept it at all. I am, however, just petty enough to get a little

satisfaction from seeing one of the major perpetrators in the impeachment debacle having to deal with trying to keep HIS private life private from the VERY same kind of people who wanted to hang Bill Clinton in public for having sexual relations with a consenting adult.

People like us want to stay OUT of other people's bedrooms. It's people like THEM who want to butt in at every opportunity. Graham is part of THEM, quite willingly and knowingly. He also knows that rumors about his orientation have been going around for years and years. Therefore, he SHOULD have known that his allies would someday go snooping through HIS bedroom curtains.

Whether he's gay or not is not my business. What IS my business is that Graham and ALL his allies want to snoop into everyone ELSE's sex lives. In this instance, Graham is getting what he apparently wanted. He can't exclude himself from the very witch hunts he started.

To be clear: I condemn gay baiting. I condemn homophobia. I am for full civil rights for GLBTs. In MY world nobody would peak through anybody else's bedroom window.

BUT I do derive some small satisfaction from seeing the tables turned on the assholes who are aligned with homophobes.

[saracat]

22. All I can say is I would never have the temerity to speak for God, Sir. I leave that

attribute to the GOP. I am not a fan of Lindsay Graham but he is little different form most politicians. I expect better of real humans.

[The Magistrate]

29. He Is Not a Real Human, Ma'am: He Was An Impeachment Manager In The Attempted Coup Of '98

Of all that foul crew, he was the only one who seemed to prosper in its wake; most of his fellows lost state-wide elections afterwards, or slipped from good prospect in their careers in other ways. That a curse was upon them as a group was clear, and it is clear Graham was simply elevated so his fall would be the more fitting and spectacular when it came....

[saracat]

33. He sir, is a politician. Few of them are really human. I expect better of us, the people

the real humans. It is not up to us to speak for God and I know of no curse. They were all ass hats to begin with but we do not need to join in their douchebaggerey by utilizing any sort of homophobic attack or joining in any effort that seeks to imply homosexuality is something to be "used" as an object of shame.No matter what Graham did to Clinton, for which I hold him in disrespect, does not give us the right to behave in a shameful manner or support those who do.

I would not be unhappy if Graham should lose but let that be for his despicable stand on issues, not implications of a hidden sexuality. I find that approving of such actions on a democratic site is revolting. Two rights do not make a right. And BTW, should he lose. I do not believe God's will will have anything to do with it.it will merely be a reflection of the political landscape of his state at the time and zero to do with God. JMHO.

[flyarm]

42. +10,000! SIR!! EOM

[DefenseLawyer]

4. Buy the ticket, take the ride. n/t

[butterfly77]

5. He deserves it..

and more another lying ass hypocrite...warmongering bastard.

[alfredo]

6. Graham doesn't deserve to be treated like that. I don't like

his politics, but attacking his sexuality is wrong. Attack him on policy.

[NNN0LHI]

7. He served as a House manager of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial over a blow job

Ironic isn't it?

Don

[Sebastian Doyle]

19. And if someone would have outed him then, it might have been a valid point.

Him making an issue of Bill Clinton's sex life, would have been an appropriate context to call his own into question.

Or any time Graham voted on the side of bigots on civil rights issues, including marriage equality, DADT, or whatever.

But why is he being dragged out of the closet for an immigration battle? I don't see the relevance there.

[flyarm]

43. MANY tried to ..he was completely protected in his hypocracy! eom

[Supersedeas]

8. the Repigs helped organize, galvanize, manipulated, and inflamed RW Fundamentalist - now the Monster

will turn, without great surprise, on some of the madmen that created it.

[movonne]

20. Probably because they are not mad enough to be madmen...

[napi21]

9. I'm actually surprised that at least 1 of the folks from SC haven't

done this before now. Lindsy is one of a very few Pubs I agree with once in a while, and he's a smart guy. SC should be happy they have a Sen. like Graham to represent them in DC. Of course I lived there for 6 years & by far, most of them don't pay any attention to politics until an election day comes around. Then they ask their neighbor or fellow worker who they're voting for and they will do the same.

[quiet.american]

10. This shit is ugly and outrageous. I don't care who the target is.

Yes, I tend to despise Republicans with a white-hot passion because of their damaging and callous political philosophies, but this shit -- all of it -- is beyond the pale.

[Tansy_Gold]

12. This shit is ugly and outrageous, and people like Graham bring it on themselves

I don't know that Lindsay Graham is gay, and I don't care one way or the other. But he has voluntarily put himself into a public venue, a glass house if you will, where ALL his actions are subject to scrutiny.

If indeed he is gay, and if indeed he has espoused policies and/or politics that are anti-gay while hiding behind his own "protected" status, then he is fair game, regardless who outs him. That it comes from one of his own (?) is perhaps a fitting irony, since these are the very people his party -- and his hypocrisy -- has protected and encouraged.




Tansy Gold

[quiet.american]

23. I take your point, but in my view, that's one thing, this is another.

It's one thing to be called out on the hypocrisy of being gay and voting for anti-gay measures, fine. I'm all for that, too.

But this guy is not calling out Graham on that. The way it strikes me is that this guy is saying that because Graham is not extreme enough in his views for him, it must naturally be because he's gay and is being blackmailed by Democrats because he's gay. And I never thought I would put in a word for Graham, but I do recall at the town halls last summer, he at least attempted to ramp down some of the "teh stupid" that was showing up at his events, unlike Grassley, et al.

Coupled with Tancredo's nonsense, this is all just very ugly to me.

[blm]

13. Graham DOES deserve it in that he knuckled under MANY times to SC bigots over his 'secret' ...

always ready to do whatever the Bob Jonesers wanted in exchange for the powerful positions he craved.

He let THEM use his secret against him. This could be the best thing that ever happened to him, but, it can also be the most dangerous since many a wingnut WAS snookered into voting for him more than a few times - and I expect they'll be pissed at Graham AND the party. They should be royally pissed at that hypocrite Bob Jones and his entire network of operatives, too, as they have always known Graham's secret and stuck by him to USE it for their own ends.

[Hekate]

15. Solely on the basis that the Repub Party nurtured the monster of bigotry & violence in its bosom....

I say that whatever happens to those who (like Graham) either countenanced it, stood by and said nothing, or actively encouraged said monster is well-deserved when it turns on them.

Other than that, what The Magistrate said.

Hekate

[mitchum]

17. I have always said that the right wingers will successfully out Gomer

it has begun

[EnlightenedOne]

18. Lie down with dogs, you get fleas

Its horribly ugly - but then most R's are as well as what they stand for. Looks like they will eventually eat their own, which is fine with me.

[Captain Hilts]

21. COMPLETELY agree. nt

[Dappleganger]

24. *Thinks about something along the line of living and dying by the sword*

[CakeGrrl]

27. +1

[mstinamotorcity]

26. Well now maybe Mr. Graham

will vote with his convictions instead of siding with ridiculous back stabbing corrupt individuals who only reason for saying no is because they want "this President to fail." Maybe Mr. Graham figured out that if the President fails the country fails. I keep saying that Financial Reform and Immigration Reform are what is going to destroy the repugs for about twenty years. Look anybody with some sense sees the writing on the wall. Mitch McConnell busted going to talk to wall street folks and Tom Coburn was there.Busted. Now they know that these republicans in some districts can't go along with the no,no,no squad. Mr. Graham obviously doesn't want to play stupid. That is a hard job when you have better sense. He really should look at it on the bright side. Now he doesn't have to hide his intelligence or that he is gay. Works for me.

[joeybee12]

30. William Gheen has done the impossible...made me feel sorry for a Repuke Senator...n/t

[elocs]

32. Apparently DU is the final arbiter of who deserves what, if they should suffer, and how long.

What a surprise this is.

[Hekate]

35. Consider who Outed him and why. It was none of us, nor was it anyone on the left. Schadenfreude...

What you see here at DU is grave dancing, aka Schadenfreude. No, it's not pretty, but his fall is not being brought about by a Democrat, Progressive, or any other entity left of center, but by one of his own.

Hekate

Schadenfreude Dance --->

[elocs]

36. Interesting. It's like if I'm against the death penalty I can celebrate when another state executes

someone that I believe is deserving and so my hands can be clean.

I love the way that DU can split hairs in order to obtain justification.

[DefenseLawyer]

47. When the state of South Carolina seeks to put him to death for being gay

I'll be right there to defend him. Being called out by the same moralist dickweeds he has pandered to for years for his own political gain is not exactly the same thing. You know there are some in the LGBT community who people in outing people as well. No one that I saw was calling for him to be punished or to resign. It's hardball politics. No one forced Mr. Graham to build a career as a right wing conservative. But he did. And as the great Super Chicken once said, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it."

[bullwinkle428]

51. Technically, he WAS NOT "outed"! "Outed" automatically implies

some concrete form of proof that the man is gay. This is nothing more than a series of charges based on unsubstantiated rumors that have been floating around for years.

Any clown out there could have literally "outed" any prominent politician, if we're defining it that way.

[terrya]

37. This is blatant homophobia, pure and simple.

William Gheen believes that being gay is the worst thing in the world. According to him, it's a nasty secret that Graham needs to own up to.

[MajorChode]

53. Sure it is, but what does anyone expect from the party of bigotry?

I'm sure Graham himself is not surprised.

[DainBramaged]

39. He doesn't deserve it, but I for one will serve popcorn while the story unfolds

may the Right roast all of their own until all that is left is the hand that turned the spit.

[Junkie Brewster]

40. Hmmm... I am torn on this one

On the one hand, Lindsay Graham, like every other American, deserves respect and privacy for his personal life, provided, of course, that s/he engages in consensual sex that does not involve harming others any more than the others may have consented to be harmed (in other words, watching Lindsay Graham bone Rick Santorum would force me to bleach my eyeballs, but if I signed up for it, I should be the one responsible for my post-traumatic psychiatric care). On the other hand, it's delicious to see someone hoist on his own petard, especially if someone is onboard with people willing to hurt other people.

I guess I see Lindsay Graham's sexuality as akin to Bob Barr's ethnicity. A lot of folks believe that Bob Barr is passing (i.e., he has some African-American ancestry he is disavowing). Ultimately, though, it's Bob Barr's problem, and not mine, especially now that he's out of office. You could say that Lindsay Graham's problem is our problem while he's in office. So, I am torn.

[olegramps]

41. When you swim with sharks, don't be surprised you will eaten alive.

This is the modern reborn again KKK without the scary hoods and burning crosses. It was Jews, Catholics and Negroes then and today it is Hispanics, Homosexuals and sadly once again the Blacks. It appears that the Catholics have joined the red-neck trash over the abortion issue and are being spared. It also helps that they now control the Supreme Court that can grant person-hood to corporations which makes them unabortable. Seems they have taken up the cause of the Israeli Jews in view of bringing about the End Days.

[Raschel]

44. Outrageous. But I think a senator saying we should send our President back to Africa is worse.

[blogslut]

45. On this topic, I shall defer to Pulp Fiction philosopy

Hey you teebaggers and republicans:

"My name's Paul and this is between ya'll."

[DevonRex]

46. Graham seemed to approve of folks snooping into Clinton's private life.

He lives in a glass house and chose to throw stones. EVERYBODY who participated in the impeachment debacle did. And that means every single one of them deserve to have their private lives snooped into, no matter what their orientation might be.

Gheen's personal life needs to be made public as well. I think somebody should get right on that.

[Captain Hilts]

50. Agree. nt