Sen. Lindsey Graham is really, really worried that the baggers will primary him out of the Senate in 2014.
“In February or March you have to raise the debt ceiling. And I can tell you this, there is a hardening on the Republican side. We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to let Obama borrow any more money or any American Congress borrow any more money until we fix this country from becoming Greece. And that requires significant entitlement reform to save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy. Social Security is going bankrupt in about 20, 25 years. Medicare is going bankrupt in 15 or 20 years. […]
“Yes, we will play that game, Mr. President, because it’s not a game. The game you’re playing is small ball. You’re talking about raising rates on the top 2% that would run the government for 11 days. You just got re-elected. How about doing something big that’s not liberal? How about doing something big that really is bipartisan? Every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. How about manning up here, Mr. President and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming Greece.”
Even Glenn Kessler gave that little blip three pinnochios, albeit framed with the usual “both sides do it” disclaimers. Of course, the whole speech is nonsense from start to finish.
Still, it’s always awesome to see how fast the Right can completely retool talking points. Not long ago they seized on a statement from the Congressional Budget Office that the Affordable Care Act will save $716 in Medicare costs, and screamed that the President was gutting Medicare. Now they’re screaming for him to “man up” and cut costs from Medicare.
I know they live in an alternative reality, but it would be nice if they’d stick to one alternative reality and not hopscotch from one fantasy realm to another as their mood dictates.
And if anybody needs to “man up,” it’s Graham. How about manning up and adopting some principles, Senator? How about putting the country ahead of your career? How about telling the baggers to go bag themselves? I know that’s an alien concept, but do work on it.
Somebody’s been clutching the pearls a wee bit too tightly, it seems.
Seems to me that Obama’s recent election win should compel him to be more partisan, not less. Is this Graham’s first week in politics or something?
Poor Limpseed Graham-crackers, she’s having a hissy-fit.
So, Limpseed, you want us to cut EARNED BENEFITS, aka: “Austerity,” so that we don’t become Greece, but by actually cutting EARNED BENEFITS, will turn us into Greece.
Also too – The Seniorita Senator from SC, the USA has something Greece doesn’t have – IT’S OWN FECKIN’ CURRENCY, AND THE ABILITY TO PRINT IT!!!
One might think that a sitting Senator might know that Greece has the Euro, and cannot do what we can do.
Also three – When will you finally “man-up” and admit that you like your men up, or down, on bended knee, or whatever position it is you prefer?
There’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re Gay.
Oh, but I forget – you represent the not-at-all great state of South Carolina – one of our biggest moocher/taker states, and home to rabid racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and/or homophobia. And where if you mention “dick,” you’d better be talking about Nixon or Cheney. And you can’t even mention Luger, because being “Lugered” is the greatest fear you have. Losing your Senate seat will make you completely insignificant, and no one will give a flying feck what your opinion is on anything. No more grazing in the Green Rooms of networks, no more appearances with Johnny Mac, who’ll drop you like a white-hot rock.
Maybe we can start that 2 years early, before you lose to an even meaner and stupider mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger in 2014. Meaning we can start today.
We’ll start paying attention to you again when/if you get a brain and a soul. But to do that, you’ll have to leave your brainless and soulless party. And then, you won’t have that job you love so much, anyway. Seniorita Senator Limpseed Graham-crackers – meet the Devil, there’s the deep blue sea – oh, and over there, is rock and a hard place Unhappy landings…
Republicans:
My job and my party over people.
My job, and my party over country.
MY JOB AND MY PARTY UBER ALLES!!!
Well, I AM opposed to us becoming Greece.
I mean, first there’s the whole different alphabet I’d have to learn, and the yogurt is just too thick – the texture is all wrong. Does anyone know if we will ALL need to learn to play bouzouki, or just those who now play guitar?
Anyone who complains about needing to stop us from becoming Greece is shouting out loud that they aren’t serious, and are trying to scam the rubes. The differences between our economic situations are so great it’s like complaining we need to stop ourselves from becoming banana pudding, or something. It’s nonsense!
But you have to laugh out loud when he suggests that, since he’s just been re-elected on a fairly liberal platform, Obama should do something big that is NOT liberal. Wha?
Did South Carolina also legalize pot? Because Graham must be smoking something…
“until we fix this country from becoming Greece.”
So Miss Lindsey and the Repuke senators and congressmen are going to self-deport? I’ll chip in for tickets. Although apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia doesn’t exist any more, so I don’t know where they would go.
Mike G: They can self-deport to Somalia. They can establish that perfect small government they want so badly and have the low-taxes, few to no services such low taxation means.
OT Maha — how is the getting used to the new place coming along? I know you probably haven’t unpacked a lot but I hope you’re feeling comfortable there and feel at home.
Lindsey is a proud citizen of the Twilight Zone, a place (country) that runs beautifully without a government – just like Reagan suggested when he uttered the phrase that launched Republicans into the Zone – government is the problem; government is not the solution.
Republicans have been hell-bent on destroying the government by starving it of funds – although – like so many other Republican solutions, their ‘solutions’ are unfathomable. Like, privatize education, their scheme being that government funds it (with vouchers) but the private sector runs it. The logical and consistent privatization of education would mean it would be funded individually by people who have children in school just like the private school system presently is. (It’ll be a rude awakening when they discover that the government they’ve starved of funds can’t afford the costs of vouchers.)
At this point, Lindsey and his fellow Republicans continue to be under the spell of Big Brother, Reagan, and to live in the Twilight Zone now inhabited only by Zombies.
The more I think about it, the more I admire Limpseed’s ‘CHOOOTS-pah!”
He’s calling for President Obama to do something that this chickensh*t motherfecker never did in his entire political life – buck his own Conservative base.
“I know they live in an alternative reality, but it would be nice if they’d stick to one alternative reality and not hopscotch from one fantasy realm to another as their mood dictates.”
If only our good-for-nothing “free” press would do their jobs and call them on it. Instead, they seem to live in their own alternate realities and couldn’t expose that important fact about Republicans if their lives depended on it. And, the first Government expense that should go on the chopping block is the salaries we pay these crazy people in Congress.
So what makes you think graham actually CAN “man up”? You do know that ann coulter is a former male pig farmer, right?
I wouldn’t be surprised if more of dem pukes had gender switches.
I have been trying to glimpse some strategy in what the GOP is doing – post election. There’s been some chaos – mixed messages. A few GOP senators openly suggesting that they have to make-nice with Hispanics to win national contests. There has been the illusion of a break with Norquest – but on closer inspection is not a break in ideology – those who spoke ill of Grover still worship at he altar of no-tax-increases. At one point, Boehner called Obamacare, ‘the law of the land’ only to walk it back. So WTF is going on – and what will it mean in 2013?
I think we are seeing an emerging ‘Dolittle Strategy’. After Pearl Harbor, the US was angry, but the military was demoralized. The bulk of the Pacific fleet was out of action from a single raid. Rebuilding a fleet would take years, but the public was demanding the impossible – punishment for Japan. The raid led by Jimmy Dolittle had NO military significance. A handful of bombers made a single raid on a few targets in Tokyo with a stunt that could never be repeated. The raid had HUGE significance in the US – we struck at the heart of the Japanese empire, even if it was a feeble blow. It gave heart to the US and put fear in the generals of Japan.
I know you hate my long-winded editorials, but they amuse me. And I might be right (for once). The GOP is demoralized – they expected to win the White House and Senate and sweep away all vestiges of socialism in the US. The didn’t win the Senate – they lost seats there and in the House. The political equivalent of seeing your fleet sunk. The GOP can’t win any big legislative fights – the Senate will ignore frivolous legislation from the House – and the POTUS can veto anything they get past the Senate. Congressional override? Not likely. But they haven’t surrendered – not by a long shot.
The strategy is lie the Dolittle Raid – the economic significance of any victory in negotiations doesn’t matter – as long as they strike at the heart of ‘liberal’ philosophy. The objective is a win they can take to their base – a trophy to prove they aren’t on the road to extinction.
Behind closed doors, the GOP will give away the store if they can have ONE symbolic victory. Behind closed doors, democrats have to decide if they can give it to them. If democrats play hard ball they can force the GOP to capitulate or they can force them to completely obstruct. Either path will decimate the republican party. If the democrats let the GOP save face with some wimpy win, they can probably get a deal that preserves Medicare – Medicaid – SS and Obamacare. If you really hate what the GOP has become, the temptation to grind them into the dust is – tempting. But that means a protracted gov’t shutdown over the debt ceiling and a lot of people who really need assistance may miss a few checks. It can hurt a lot.
Insightful, Doug. To me, another facet of the present situation is the Republicans’ ever-present focus on the long game. Everything they want to win is a “taking away” from the social contract. They want to “give” nothing cumulative to society. Their incrementalist approach to achieving their Randian goal will chew away at everything the Democrats stand for, until finally there has been so much compromising on our side that the Republicans will have achieved through losing what they could not win outright. I remember reading that their plan was to make it so that a Democrat could not govern as a Democrat.
I don’t at all mind reading longer posts. I think that way, too.
I know you hate my long-winded editorials
Oh, not so! I don’t know much military history, so I found your analogy informative as well as apt. Keep em coming, Doug.
Doug,
What Joan said!
Bill B. – The “Republicans’ ever-present focus on the long game” may have had its inception when Rove became the key Republican strategist. His goal is to create a fundamental realignment (historic) of power. What you read, that their (Republican)) plan was to make it so that a Democrat could not govern as a Democrat is right on.
(This just ‘kicked’ in for me – when G. Washington was asked to comment on the Revolutionary War he said that the British would win the battles but the Americans would win the war. Kind of sums up what you (and Doug in a way) argued.)