Lindsey Graham runs afoul of GOP purity police with Guantanamo stance (MCLAME'S LAPDOG)

The Washington Post ^ | 2010-03-14 | Dana Milbank

[rabscuttle385]

(snip)

But Graham has heard it all before. "What drives my train," he told me when I reached him late in the week, "is not their approval; it's getting it right."

The fact that such a sentiment makes Graham an oddball in the Republican Party, and to some extent Congress generally, says less about him than about his colleagues. For all his supposed heresies -- on climate change, judicial nominees, immigration and now his offer to help close the Guantanamo Bay prison -- Graham had a 2009 rating of 88 percent from the American Conservative Union and a lifetime rating of 90 percent.

"The people that call me a RINO would call Ronald Reagan a RINO," he protested. "Reagan worked with Tip O'Neill to increase taxes to save Social Security." What's changed is that "purity is replacing principled compromise," he lamented, as ideology enforcers in both parties threaten primary challenges against those who stray.

Though Graham doesn't have to face primary voters until 2014, his defiance of the GOP purity police is still courageous. His Republican colleagues in Congress, wetting their pants out of fear of the tea party movement, show no sign of joining him.

(snip)

[upchuck]

Here's Lindsey, appropriately dressed for the occasion:

Uber RINO Lindsey Ping
"Republican by day, Democrat by night."

Want on or off this ping list?
Just FReepmail me.

h/t to martin_fierro for the graphic

[az.b1bbomberfxr]

Lindsay Graham's train

[Theodore R.]

People in SC really eat that stuff up.

[Theodore R.]

Now, you are speaking for the slow-talking Carolinians before they have had their say. They see something there we don’t. Maybe SC wants to apologize for December 1860, and Lindsey is their balm!

[jla]

SarahPAC donated cash to this miscreant, but according to the Fringe that doesn't mean she supports him. I reckon they had to come up with some excuse since the 'loyalty obligation as Veep nominee pick' doesn't apply here, along with the presumed notion that Sarah Palin is above reproach.

r385 pinged per FR posting rules.

[NoRedTape]

Anyone else cringe when this dude gives a sound bite?

Hoofah.

When will he be gone from office? Guantanamo should never close and I don't know what other fair-dust ideas are floating around in his thought process.

[Just mythoughts]

Has WaPo ever used the term “Democrat purity police”? If not, their whole screed is tainted, slanted and biased and therefore worth less than the paper it is printed on.

The various forms of the word 'purity' is a pejorative used against conservatives in place of what use to be used, their favorite pejorative, 'single issue voters'. The high minded moderate 'blue bloods', party apparatus consider the 'right' wing of the Republican Party their personal servants. The choose who gets on ballots and we get to vote like bleating sheep, thanking them for letting US have that honor.

I remember when the transformation first took place in changing pejoratives, when the stand against President Bush, lord McCain, Windy, and old Ted Kennedy attempted to hand down grace and redemption to a vast illegal invasion. Old Teddy has his own free passes he was planning on issuing along with Bush and lord McCain. They were calling it 'compassion', and required governmental blessing to maintain our economy. Their faux compassion never quite got around to those of US who were being required to pay the tax without representation for medical care and education.

Some days I think it is people like Windy, the audible voice of lord McCain write the liberals talking points against conservatives. Old Windy is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Maybe you’d better check profiles before sounding off. We ain’t gonna apologize for anything. Now go and tend to your own RINOs.

[Joe Boucher]

Nope,
Quite the contrary,

[Theodore R.]

You are correct. TX is full of RINOs too and most primary voters don’t know they have been “had”. 2010 was supposed to have been the year of Democrat resurgence in TX, but the GOP may hold off the flood against it for one more election.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

So Graham is one of those senators who don’t care about the approval of the taxpayer/voters.

Very interesting!

There’s a cure for that.

The behind the scenes money, much of it from foreign sources, doesn't care if all Democrats lose their seats. Of course they won't but once passed the health care bill will establish control over all of us and overturning it will be nearly impossible.

Many Democrats from blue states and urban districts will be reelected regardless. They will have enough votes to be obstructive and the unions and media will be behind them poring on the propaganda very thick in their favor.

Our best hope is that some of those Democrats want to keep their cushy jobs badly enough to vote the way their constituents want them to.