Gentleman Lindsey
This sort of thing is why Lindsey Graham felt so betrayed at the Kavanaugh attacks. It’s Graham’s statement in 2010, explaining his vote for Elana Kagan:
We lost. President Obama won. I’ve got a lot of opportunity to disagree, but the Constitution, in my view, puts an obligation on me not to replace my judgment for his, not to think of the hundred reasons I would pick someone different… I view my duty as to protect the Judiciary and to ensure that hard-fought elections have meaning in our system. I’m going to vote for her [Kagan] because I believe this election has consequences. And this president chose someone who is qualified to serve on this court and understands the difference between being a liberal judge and a politician. At the end of the day, it wasn’t a hard decision… She would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, chose wisely.
If you read the article the quote comes from, you’ll find an ironic statement, this time from Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois:
Graham’s comments spurred Democratic Whip Dick Durbin to call him an “extraordinary senator” who had prompted Durbin to rethink some of his previous votes against conservative nominees.
I guess Durbin didn’t recall it during the Kavanaugh hearings. But I bet he was shocked when the previously mild-mannered Graham unloaded on the Democrats of the committee.
I recently came across a video interview of Graham taken back in the summer of 2015, when he was running for president. Here’s a passage I found very moving; I hadn’t known this about Graham’s history, and it tells you a great deal about him (I cued it up for the part I’m referring to, but for some reason it autoplays again after that, and although I’ve tried and tried to turn off the autoplay it hasn’t worked, so you need to stop it yourself after it’s gotten to the cutoff at 6:05):
Graham was orphaned at 22 and his younger sister was 13. He adopted her.
Interesting details about Graham. I liked him a lot better as a Congressman. I don’t think McCain was a good influence on him. He has certainly turned his reputation around with the Kavanaugh hearing. I am wondering if, after the election, he might quit the Senate to become Attorney General and Nikki Haley might be appointed to his place in the Senate. That’s kind of complicated but I do wonder about the reason she resigned, aside from all the annoying crooks in the UN.
MikeG:
Graham has explicitly addressed that and stated that he has no desire to be AG and he believes his strength and purpose is best served as a senator, as long as the people of SC will have him.
Ambivalent toward Graham. Thirty years in the Air Force Reserve (not active duty) as a lawyer. He kind of threw the “30 years” out as though he were at the tip of the spear. Nope.
But, my main complaint has been that I always viewed him as sort of riding McCain’s coat tails; and, I have never been an admirer of McCain. He served honorably in Hanoi, as did so many others, and he parlayed it into a very nice political career. In my opinion he never demonstrated loyalty to anyone but J. McCain.
After the Kavenaugh hearings I am reassessing Graham. Maybe moving out of McCain’s shadow has been transforming. The GOP in the Senate desperately needs publicly visible leadership. If he can step up, then more power to him.
Interesting. But I think his views on the Clinton Impeachment would be more relevant to the issues in play during the Kavanaugh hearing.
Thanks for putting that video up. LG is like many others in the GOP, up until a few weeks ago he didn’t want to believe the democrats were not the democrats of the past. Democrats up until the 1990s actually were pro American and could engage in reasoned debate. Now he has see their ruthlessness and dangerous ideology. He seems ‘woke’. I hope he stays that way.
Manju:
Oh, of course, Lindsey Graham’s view on judicial appointments and the reason he voted for people he didn’t like isn’t particularly relevant to why he got upset at what the Democrats did at the Kavanaugh hearings, including how Chuck Schumer was out to get Kavanaugh from the start.
Riiiiight.
And the Clinton impeachment—which essentially has zero to do with the Kavanaugh hearings—is more relevant.
Riiiiight.
By the way, if you’ve ever read anything I’ve written about the Clinton impeachment, I think it was the wrong thing to do.
If you’re actually interested in Lindsey Graham’s actual views on the Clinton impeachment, watch this.
Manju cracks me up. He/she/it/zir has perhaps never understood the phrase “like shooting fish in a barrel”.
Thanks so much for the video of Graham – I never paid much attention to him other than as “John McCain’s wingman” (his words), and I never liked John McCain.
I wonder how much his personal history affected his reaction to the slanders against Kavanaugh, especially the attempts to make drinking a crime in and of itself, since his parents owned a bar and he worked there and understood the dynamics of working-men’s drinking, although probably not preppie-kids habits, as his own education was hard-scrabble. However, that might give him more empathy with Kavanaugh-the-grind, working to earn his way into law school with top grades.
And adopting his sister to provide for her was the kind of things families do; watching what the Dems put Kavanaugh’s wife and kids through surely was one factor that outraged him.
As a side note, his father was 67 when his mother was 52, a wide age differential that is not unusual in southern marriages of a certain vintage.
Another look at “Mad Dog Graham” for president in 2024?
The Clinton Impeachment is more relevant because what Republicans did to Clinton parallels the controversial things Democrats did to Kavanaugh, which is not to say it was wrong. The Kagen hearings have no such similarities.
With Clinton and Kavanaugh we are dealing with issues like sexual assault, due-process, rape, character-assassination, historically disenfranchised groups, vast right and left wing conspiracies, credible witnesses, the politics of personal destruction, and lying under oath.
These are the central issues in play.
Graham is 63. He has a weak hold on his constituency. (He was held to 55% of the vote in a Republican primary in 2014, running against a set of state legislators and private citizens). He’ll be eligible for Medicare in July 2020, for full Social Security in September 2021, and he’ll have a satisfactory pension due from 26 years in Congress and whatever accrues from his military service. He might just retire at the end of his term.
and I never liked John McCain.
McCain seemed to attract some people and repel others. His voting record in Congress was adequate when viewed in toto, but he had a tendency to engage in attention-seeking maneuvers at inopportune times (see the Obamacare vote) and to be duplicitous with Arizona voters (a tendency Flake started to emulate and which wrecked his career). He also did some strange and perverse things that made you wonder where the 10th planet was. (Hiring a pair of grifters like Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace; everything he ever did or said in re immigration enforcement). Made his ‘wacko bird’ insult kind of ironic.
The Clinton Impeachment is more relevant because what Republicans did to Clinton parallels the controversial things Democrats did to Kavanaugh,
Really? I missed the dumpster dive into Clinton’s recreations at age 17, his inside jokes, &c. While we’re at it, Clinton’s association with the McDougals, Webb Hubbell, Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Juanita Broaddrick was quite real. We have no reason to believe that Christine Blasey had any acquaintanceship with Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge bar what she could glean from Judge’s memoirs.
Manju: The differences between the Clinton and Kavanaugh situations are so numerous, it would be more accurate to say they have nothing in common.
The allegations against Clinton were proved with physical evidence, and were about something he did while President, and while in the Oval Office, in addition to the ridiculously long string of other accusations against him that were contemporaneous and specific, not vague half-remembered events from a third of a century ago with no corroborating evidence whatsoever. And of course, you’re probably forgetting that Clinton was impeached (rightly or wrongly) for lying about it, not for what he actually did.
Really, it’s nice that you want to engage, but you’re going to have to try a little harder. This is a tough crowd of smart people. I’m outspoken, but I seldom feel I have anything of real substance to add compared to what Neo and others contribute. I wouldn’t try to debate with Neo and her commenters unless I had some serious ammo.
Manju:
You’re kidding, right?
Kavanaugh was about unsupported allegations of sexual misconduct from teen years. Period.
The Clinton impeachment started with a recent sexual act—a completely proven one, complete with physical evidence—committed as an adult while in public office. But that sexual act was never the issue in the impeachment itself. The accusations were about perjury and obstruction of justice. 100% different. And due process and the Constitutional rules about impeachment were followed quite strictly.
There is almost no similarity at all, much less a relevant one.
You are grasping at straws here.
Even leaving out the legal implications and everything is legal, Bill Clinton having Extramarital affairs in the white house while he was the sitting president with an intern was way more morally condemning than Trump’s affairs with showbiz women who knew what they were getting into before he ran for president. A police officer getting drunk while he was on duty is a completely different matter than the same officer getting drunk off duty in a weekend.
besides the lowkey denial of having ever been coached on beating polygraph by Ford from her exFBI BBF, Ford and her lawyers have been silent about her exboyfriend’s letter to the nomination committee, I wonder why.
Without Paula Jones, there is no impeachment. The alleged sexual act was neither recent, completely proven, or complete with physical evidence.
I assure you that is the next steps the Kavennaugh saga will be about perjury. More similarities.
Due process and Constitutional rules about confirmation were followed just as strictly as impeachment ones were for Clinton.
Manju:
I can never decide whether you actually believe the things you write.
The Clinton impeachment was about allegations that Clinton lied under oath and tried to obstruct justice. The lying under oath occurred during a deposition in the Paula Jones trial, but it was not about anything connected with Paula Jones. It was about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And the only reason he got into trouble for it—after denying it—was because there was indisputable evidence of the sexual relationship in the Tripp tapes and the DNA on the blue dress.
The sexual act about which Clinton was said to have lied, etc., was his relationship with Lewinsky, and none of it had anything to do with Jones and his alleged sexual relationship with her except that the testimony happened in connection with that trial when asked about Lewinsky. You can twist and turn and try all you want, but that’s what it was about.
And the only reason due process was ever considered re the Kavanaugh accusations themselves (not the hearing—the truth or falsehood of the accusations) was because the Republicans were interested in it. The Democrats wanted to pronounce him guilty, or almost certainly guilty, in the absence of any proof at all except Ford’s word and her testimony that contained many lies and omissions, so many that her accusations would have held absolutely no force in a court of law and charges would never have been seriously entertained. The “due process” I’m referring to for Kavanaugh was not about the hearing itself but about Democrats’ insistence that he is guilty, and for many Democrats the insistence that he is guilty of rape (which Ford never even charged him with). The Ramirez and Avenatti stories of course factored into Kavanaugh’s trial in the court of public opinion, as well. The Democrats’ side as well as the MSM were more than willing to act as though he was guilty. “Rush to judgment” is a mild word for what they did.
In contrast, Clinton was protected by the MSM right up to the point that the smoking gun—the dress—was authenticated as having his DNA on it. At that point it was clear he had at least misled the court in his grand jury testimony (whether he technically committed perjury was still unclear—personally, I think he did not, but it was a close call).
If the lying was not connected to the Paula Jones case, then its not material. If it’s not material, then there is no perjury.
One could make a reasonable argument that Republicans impeached Clinton because of perjury. Once could also make a reasonable argument that the lies in question were not material.
But one cannot logically argue that Republicans impeached Clinton because of perjury, while simultaneously claiming that they thought the lies had nothing to do with Paula Jones.
Manju:
Logic is not your strong suit. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether it’s in your deck at all. Much of the time you’re not only wrong, but your arguments make no sense. That may sound harsh, but I don’t mean it to be. I sometimes also wonder why you come here. Seriously.
As I already said in an earlier comment, I don’t think Clinton committed perjury. I have actually written at length about why. But that’s not the issue you raise in the last sentence of your most recent comment, in which you write: “one cannot logically argue that Republicans impeached Clinton because of perjury, while simultaneously claiming that they thought the lies had nothing to do with Paula Jones.”
Among other flaws in your argument, you have misstated my argument. I actually wrote this in my comment, and I think it makes it crystal clear what I meant. To help you out here, I have bolded the most important part:
In other words, as far as the nature of the sexual relationship with Jones and whatever coverup Clinton engineered for that goes—that was not what the Clinton impeachment was about at all. It was about the nature of the sexual relationship with Lewinsky and his coverup of that. That that latter coverup occurred in connection with the Jones trial is irrelevant to the subject we were discussing, which had to do with the contrast between the charges against Clinton in his impeachment trial and the accusations against Kavanaugh in his hearing and how each were subsequently handled.
So the Republicans impeached Clinton because of perjury that was about his actions with Lewinsky. I do not think it was perjury, but I wasn’t one of the Republicans who impeached him. But that was only one of the counts of impeachment, which also included obstruction of justice that was all related to Lewinsky as well. The entire thing had to do with principles of law that he supposedly violated, all in regard to Lewinsky. That it arose in the context of the Paula Jones lawsuit does not change the fact that it all had nothing to do with his sexual relationship (or lack thereof) with Jones, and was only about his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
If it had nothing to “with his sexual relationship (or lack thereof) with Jones” then it would be immaterial, and cannot be perjury. Republicans argued that his relationship with Lewinski helped demonstrate that he had relations with Paula Jones.
You want to deny this connection while simultaneously saying the impeachment was about perjury. That dog don’t hunt.
Anyway, as I explained to you in the thread where you were gobsmacked about Dems gong after Kavenaugh’s drinking, etc…Clinton’s perjury charge is roughly analogous to Dems focus on Kavenaugh’s underage drinking, treatment of Renate, etc…it’s not that they consider the underlying behavior disqualifying, its the lying about it.
So, that’s another parallel.
Manju:
Regarding the treatment of Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh by the democrats; what part of “Show me the man, I’ll show you the crime.” do you understand?
I assert you understand none of it, or pretend so. Pathetic.
Manju:
It wasn’t perjury in my opinion, as I’ve said many times. But the argument that it was perjury was hardly a frivolous one, and I understand how a person could sincerely believe it was perjury. It was certainly misleading, and in the usual sense of the word “lie” it was a lie. However, Clinton’s answer was technically correct in the factual sense, according to the weird definition of sex used by the court (a definition he had them repeat, just to make sure). But it was indeed a lie in the sense that it was completely misleading in terms of the intent and meaning of the question rather than in a very narrow technical sense. That does not mean that the people alleging it was perjury do not sincerely believe that it was perjury; the argument that it was perjury can certainly be made in good faith.
There have been lengthy law review articles written on the subject of whether Clinton committed perjury, in case you’re interested. Here’s the relevant part to what we’re discussing:
Not Jones. Lewinsky. Whether Clinton had a sexual relationship with Jones, and what that relationship may have been, was not an issue in the impeachment.
In addition, if you read that article, you’ll discover that perjury has three elements: the fact lied about must be under oath, must be material, and the person doing the lying must know that the statement is false. That’s actually a pretty high bar, and it means that a statement that is not material, or that is made in error or as a result of having a memory lapse cannot be perjury.
In addition, of course, a statement made by Clinton could have been material in the Paula Jones case without having anything to do with his actual sexual relationship with Paula Jones.
Clinton’s sexual relationship with Lewinsky was not about his sexual relationship with Paula Jones. That is such an obvious fact that I can’t believe you don’t understand it.
A person (I’m not that person) could believe his statement was perjury—a knowing lie that was material to the Jones trial, without believing the statement was about his sexual relationship with Jones. In Jones, Clinton was asked about his sexual relationship with Lewinsky under a law that allows facts about sexual acts with other people to be introduced into a trial like that of Jones.
You write “Republicans argued that his relationship with Lewinski helped demonstrate that he had relations with Paula Jones.” I’m sure there were some Republicans who argued that, but not as part of his impeachment or the trial in the Senate that followed. It was not the basis for the impeachment and not part of the impeachment proceedings or the subsequent trial in the Senate.
Please quit wasting our time. I have allowed you to comment here so far because although you’re a troll, you’ve been an interesting one. But the more illogical you become—and although you’ve been illogical from the start, your lack of logic has grown—the less interesting you become as a troll.
Also, quit the strawman sophistry. “Gobsmacked”? Hardly.