It’s getting to where it’s impossible to overestimate the role that Lindsey Graham plays in Washington.
Nowadays, an UnPartisan like me becomes nostalgic for the days when I would say I could count the people in D.C. willing to work across party lines on one hand. Today, a finger or two will do — and not the finger that Nelson Rockefeller used; that one is reserved for the partisans to brandish at one another.
At this point Doug and some others are skipping down to the comments section to holler at me that Lindsey Graham is NOT bipartisan, that he’s as partisan as they come, and will cite quotation after quotation in which he speaks like a Republican as “proof” that he’s incorrigible. Take a second, guys, and listen: Lindsey Graham is a Republican. Always has been a Republican. He will talk like a Republican and walks like a Republican, because that’s what he is.
And that’s the remarkable thing, you see: He’s a Republican who will work with Democrats (and with my man Joe Lieberman, the only overt UnPartisan in the Senate, the chairman of my caucus). And with my longtime hero John McCain lowering himself to reach out to the Tea Party movement with a pandering campaign for re-election (when the dignified, admirable thing for a man of his age and stature would be to go down swinging as the unorthodox figure he has always been), Lindsey is the only Republican left willing to do so.
Never mind his party-line (and wrong) position on health care. Never mind any of that. The remarkable thing about the man is the issues on which he steps out and seeks common ground.
Folks, what he is doing on immigration and on energy/climate change legislation is courageous, ground-breaking, and unique. And he pays a huge political price for it, with members of his own party back home trying to excommunicate him at every opportunity. Think about it, people: How extraordinary is it for a Republican from South Carolina, of all places, to be the last Republican brave enough to work across the aisle on anything? It’s profoundly exceptional; it’s amazing. And he deserves all the credit in the world for it.
But he doesn’t get credit, at least not enough, and for that I blame the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in our society have become incapable of thinking outside the partisan frame of reference. We’re like the people of Oceania in 1984: The vocabulary for describing and discussing a man like Lindsey Graham has been banished from our lives. Everywhere we turn — television, newspapers, the blogosphere, political speeches, the output of interest groups — all political ideas are couched in terms of, if you’re not this, then you’re that. And if you’re that, you’re all the way that.
Maybe I lack the vocabulary, too, because I fail too often to get across to people what is special and unique, and hugely valuable, about our senior senator. This is frustrating to me, because the concepts necessary to understand the role Lindsey Graham plays in national politics are the very ideas central to this blog. I probably have no greater purpose in continuing to beat my head against this wall than to resist, to subvert, to overcome, the unrelenting partisanship that you find everywhere else in this medium.
Fortunately, though, some folks do notice what I notice, such as Gerald F. Seib of The Wall Street Journal, who wrote this in yesterday’s paper:
As Allied armies marched toward Germany in the closing days of World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered the bridges crossing the Rhine River blown up to slow the advance. And so they were, until just one was left standing at Remagen.
In Washington today, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham resembles that span at Remagen: He sometimes looks like the last bridge left standing to connect the two parties in an increasingly polarized capital.
That’s either a courageous or a foolhardy position in the wake of the vicious health-care battle.
Yet the South Carolina senator stands firm. In recent days he has emerged as the lawmaker trying hardest to find a bipartisan solution to two of the toughest problems on the docket: a policy for terrorism detainees and an energy bill to reduce both dependence on foreign oil and greenhouse-gas emissions.
At a time when lawmakers are more likely to be attacked than lionized for trying to work across party lines, Mr. Graham is quietly, though sometimes grudgingly, respected within his caucus, and admired inside the White House for his bravery.
He is hardly acting out of blind love for President Barack Obama’s administration. In an interview, he calls the president “a very polarizing guy,” and in a weekend appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” he excoriated the Democrats’ recently passed health bill in terms that would have made the Republican National Committee proud.
Instead, he says, “I have taken the approach that, no matter how upset I am about health care, when it comes to national security, you have to work together.” And he regards both terrorism detentions and energy as national-security matters….
OK, that’s probably as much as I can quote without getting into “fair use” trouble. I’m not sure what I think of his historical analogy (so, who is he saying the Nazis are?), but the image of Graham as a last bridge is apropos.
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Graham’s “bipartisanship” is purely an act of convenience and political gamesmanship.
And his positions on immigration and energy aren’t just bipartisan – they are plain wrong and do not represent the views of the people he is supposed to serve. Just wait til the immigration bill comes up again and Lindsey starts calling the majority of South Carolinians racists.
Your definition of bipartisanship apparently means “compromising on the basic principles of your consitituents”. It’s not an admirable trait.
The problem with Lindsey Graham is that he is a purely political animal. Hungry for the spotlight. Willing to play both sides against the middle wherever it suits him. A man who has turned his political career into a multi-million dollar net worth.
Just because you set lower standards for your favorite politicians doesn’t mean the rest of us do. When I hear him say Obama’s healthcare program is a disaster, I believe him. You just want to brush it aside because it makes your claims about Graham look foolish. If he’s only saying it to win Republican brownie points, he’s an even bigger fraud than I think he is.
Doug, you make me feel like Alice down the rabbit hole.
When Lindsay criticizes the health care bill, I believe him, too. I mean, I believe he means it. So what’s your point about that?
And what’s that stuff about “compromising on the basic principles of your consitituents”? I assume you mean “compromise” in the morally pejorative sense, as in doing something wrong, something that falls short of right in any case. But how does an individual compromise — in a morally objectionable sense — on somebody ELSE’S principles?
The only way he could be “compromising” in an objectionable sense is if he did exactly what constituents wanted him to do, when he knew they were wrong. That’s the ultimate compromise, the ultimate corruption, the thing for which we rightly condemn politicians — being a weathervane. I mean, I ASSUME you object to that, too. After all, you are constantly pushing for term limits. And the only rational reason to be for term limits is to keep politicians from compromising what they know to be right in order to do what’s popular and get re-elected. Term limits would set them free to act as conscience dictates. George Will makes that very credible argument in favor of term limits, and he’s got a point. But it’s still not a good-enough reason to tell the American people that they can’t re-elect someone if they want to.
I was never much of one for asking rote questions of political candidates in endorsement interviews. I was more free-form, making up questions on the spot depending on what I felt I needed to know about THIS candidate under the present circumstances. But we did have a few standard questions that we asked of all candidates for office — or at least all candidates for legislative office (Congress, Legislature, county council and so on). We always asked them what their concept was of the duty of an elected representative in a representative democracy: Was it to vote exactly as they thought a majority of constituents would vote if polled on each question? Or was it to go as a trusted delegate to study the issues, engage in debate, listen to all sorts of arguments, and arrive at a better-informed decision?
To me, the duty is clearly to do the latter. If we didn’t expect representatives to engage in that kind of discernment, there’s no point in electing them. We should just decide everything by plebiscite, with everything framed as yes or no or multiple choice (which would then raise the question of who gets to write the questions), and whatever the GUT reaction of a majority of people happened to be at a given moment would make our laws.
Which would be insane, and the Framers of our constitution knew that. They were horrified at the notion of such government by momentary whim, which is why they went for a republican form.
We DELEGATE people to go to Columbia or Washington or city hall and do the things that the overwhelming majority of us don’t have time to do. Just as we pay people to grow our food and manufacture our cell phones and do all the other things that one relies on other people to do in an economy more complex than that of hunter-gatherers, we hold elections in order to decide which of several candidates we trust the most (or distrust the least) to go become SMARTER than they are at the time of election about complex issues, and vote accordingly.
And then we make them come back two or four years later and we determine whether we’re satisfied with the results, or want to try sending someone else.
That’s the idea. That’s what it’s about. Unfortunately, too many politicians DO keep their fingers constantly in the wind, and make sure that they say and on only those things that affirm and reflect the gut reactions of a majority of people in their districts. The rare honest lawmaker who studies and thinks and learns and acts in accord with what he has concluded — who dares to disagree with YOU on immigration and with ME on health care — is a gem. And I will applaud and advance the interests of a representative such as that one.
I applaud Sen. Graham for his efforts in the areas of Energy and Immigration. I don’t have a problem with his dislike of this health care bill–we can disagree and I can still respect the person. What I have a problem with is his actively sneering at the democratic victory and speaking in highly partisan terms. On the other hand, I heard Rep. Clyburn talking on “Countdown” Monday night. Mr. Olberman tried to get him to agree with partisan statements on at least 2 occasions. Rep. Clyburn, instead of accepting these phrasings (of his response the racist remarks and threats that he and other democrats were enduring)rephrased the statements in a non-partisan, totally appropriate way. That strikes me as class. BTW, I don’t always agree with Mr. Clyburn either. The only way we’re going to get civil, effective behavior from our elected officials is to reward those who exhibit such behavior with re-election, and vote the others out. Mr. DeMint has lost my vote. Sen. Graham has time to salvage it, by disagreeing with others constructively, instead of joining the partisan mobs.
> And I will applaud and advance the
>interests of a representative such >as that one.
And the fact that said politician gets incredibly wealthy as a result of his position doesn’t hurt either.
As for your fantasy view of how government SHOULD work, it’s a great concept but doesn’t reflect reality. Incumbents win because of the money that flows into the office because lobbyists want to buy influence. Lindsey Graham has a couple million dollars in his campaign warchest. You’d think an incumbent would be able to win based on what he has done while in office without spending millions of dollars to craft a message that makes it LOOK like he’s doing the people’s work.
If Graham had any guts, he’d stop accepting campaign donations and allow the people to vote based on what they know of him, not some TV ads that will make him appear to be a far right conservative. I’d dare Senator Graham to use some of those millions to put ads out talking about his plans to let criminal immigrants stay in the country. That would be an “honest lawmaker”.
Karen, I think you need to take a closer look at what Graham has said about the health care bill. He has objected strongly to the WAY that Democrats chose to go about it, by getting all creative with the rules to get around the fact that they didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority.
I happen to share his concern, even while disagreeing with him about whether the bill should have passed. In fact, I meant to write about that a couple of weeks ago, but had more pressing stuff to write about at the time and then the moment got away from me. So I’ll write about it now, since you’re reminding me.
Sen. Graham objected on the grounds that such tactics were inimical to collegiality (what tattered remnants of collegiality remain), and would make it harder to pass other extremely difficult legislation such as the immigration bill. And there’s a lot of reason to believe that he’s right, that comprehensive immigration reform — which was a long shot under the best of circumstances — and climate change/energy legislation, which had the same problem, and other important issues will be harder to deal with as a result of Democrats taking this course.
Lindsey has a long and principled history on this point. He’s a key member of the Gang of 14 that kept partisans from going to the “nuclear option” to ram judicial nominees down the throats of the minority (back when Democrats were the minority). He believed that would have been enormously destructive to the deliberative process, and he was right. He believes the same thing in this case.
Now let me be clear: I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that a minority of 41 can, without even lifting a finger, block the will of the considerable majority. But you know what? I blame the majority for that as much as I do the minority.
How ridiculous it is that a majority will quail at the mere possibility of a filibuster. They should tell the threatening minority to “bring it on,” and actually ENGAGE IN DEBATE. See who wins the argument. Trust the process. If your opponent wants to stand up there and read the phone book, let him — and see whether the public is persuaded that he’s a Horatio at the bridge bravely standing against an overwhelming force, or an obstructionist idiot. In this hyperpartisan atmosphere, our politicians no longer believe in actual debate. They don’t believe in the kinds of interactions in which debate can be meaningful. The idea that they may be swayed by thoughtful, well-informed oratory is unthinkable to them. They think in terms now of there being THIS many Republicans and THIS many Democrats, and therefore one or the other side can force its will on the other one, which only succeeds in making things MORE bitter, and making real debate less likely and the deliberative process moribund.
I would have loved to see an actual debate on the floor on the merits of the bill, and may the best argument win. But neither side wants that any more. They just want to get a certain number of people wearing the appropriate label, and press a button. And as a result, the atmosphere gets more and more soaked in partisan bitterness.
A filibuster debate on this particular issue was likely to be political theater, with neither side being swayed, so there was no point to it. On the other hand, they owed a real debate to their constituents.
I’m always amused that one of the things that the neocons complain about is that the Democrats are too good at being politicians. Duh.
The legislative maneuver he refers to was used by the republicans during the last administration. I did not hear him object to it then. He needs to explain the repeated sneers.
Another fine reaction from one of the regulars.
God forbid we should have a politician who actually THINKS! Next thing you know, people will be thinking and where will that get us?
But Brad, as Obama proved with his pow wow, the Republicans wouldn’t play at all. They just held their breath and turned blue (red, actually, ha ha). How can you negotiate with that? What collegiality?
If you can’t play nicely, you get a time out.
And how did that “red” and “blue” thing catch on? Yeah, I know how it got STARTED — those maps on TV on election night — but why did it catch on?
It’s counterintuitive. Red is traditionally connected with the left — the radical left, that is, it being the color of revolution. And Republicans are traditionally seen as bluebloods or bluenoses or… well, blue in any case.
So the whole thing is backwards, and yet people embrace it. I don’t; other people.
I don’t get it either–Tories are blue, and pinko means almost Communist. The movie Reds was not about a ball team in Cincinnati.