Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)’s best friend the heroic, patriotic Senator John McCain (R-AZ) died of cancer in 2008. Immediately, the senator transformed himself into a shape-shifting cutout of Donald Trump. His “metamorphosis has been a thing of wonder,” The POLITICO publication wrote.
Graham has humiliated himself in an effort to ingratiate himself with the president. He played golf with him, snarled at Democratic Senate Judicial Committee members, and defended Trump to the end.
Retired Marine Corps four-star general and former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis publicly criticized Trump in The Atlantic magazine. He was in the administration between 2018 and 2019. In the article, he condemned the president for creating a “mockery of our Constitution.”
Graham said that the general was being “unfair” in a Fox & Friends interview, according to The Axios site:
‘To General Mattis, I think you’re missing something here, my friend. You’re missing the fact that the liberal media has taken every event in the last three-and-a-half years and laid it at the president’s feet.’
Trump responded later by saying he fired the general (he did not), gave him the nickname of “Mad Dog” (he did not), and he is “glad” Mattis was out of his Cabinet. Graham responded:
‘I’m not saying he’s blameless, but I am saying that you’re buying into a narrative that I think is, quite frankly, unfair.’
Graham added:
‘You don’t quite understand that from the time President Trump wakes up until he goes to bed, there’s an effort to destroy his presidency. … It is so fashionable to blame President Trump for every wrong in America.’
In return for Graham’s subservience, the president publicly snubbed the senator. In spite of this, Graham brought the first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner to McCain’s funeral –this in spite of the family’s wishes to exclude the president.
What happened to Graham? His former law partner Larry Brandt recalled a conversation with him right before Trump was elected:
‘He said, “Eighty-five percent of the people in Washington, elected officials and bureaucrats, would sell their mothers to keep their jobs.’ That’s a direct quote.” Two Christmases ago, Brandt ran into Graham at a restaurant in Seneca and reminded him of what he’d said. “He, of course, made a joke out of it,” Brandt says. “But Lindsey, in my opinion, has sold his mother to keep his job.”’
American political strategist and organizer for the National Field Director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016, Adam Parkhomenko tweeted:
‘If you want to defeat Lindsey Graham watch this and retweet it far and wide. Absolutely devastating. pic.twitter.com/o5mojbDxGp
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) June 4, 2020’
If you want to defeat Lindsey Graham watch this and retweet it far and wide. Absolutely devastating. pic.twitter.com/o5mojbDxGp
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) June 4, 2020
The full text of Mattis’ letter is below:
‘I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
‘When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
‘We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
‘James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
‘Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
‘Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
‘We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
‘Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
