Bleeding This Country Dry

by digby

I thought I had seen Lindsay Graham at his most revolting when he gave one of the most inane speeches in history before the US Senate in Clinton’s impeachment trial. Here’s a little reminder:

Is that what you want to do in this case? Just to save this man, to ignore the facts, to have a different legal standard, to make excuses that are bleeding this country dry? The effect of this case is hurting us more than we will ever know. Do not dismiss this case. Find out who our President is. Come to the conclusion, not that it was just bad behavior, it was illegal behavior. Tell us what is right. Tell us what is wrong. Give us some guidance. Under our Constitution, you don’t impeach people at the ballot box, you trust the U.S. Senate. And I am willing to do that. Rise to the occasion for the good of the Nation

Yes, he really said “rise to the occasion.” Read the whole thing is you can stand it just so that you can ask yourself how Huckleberry came to become a senator after that embarrassing performance.He’s much meaner now. Of course, here he’s defending the use of torture techniques, which he obviously thinks are not just useful, but downright entertaining. (But then, like so many Republicans with issues, he’s always been into the dirty stuff with a touch of menace.)Here he is treating a law professor like a lackey in today’s hearings:

He just gets creepier and creepier as time goes on. Unfortunately, he isn’t getting any smarter. From Greg Sargent:

While directing hostile questioning at a witness during the Senate torture hearing, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham cited an infamous ABC News report from 2007 that said a terror suspect broke under minimal waterboarding, and suggested it undercut the claim that torture didn’t work. But Graham didn’t appear to be aware that the report has since been debunked, and that ABC itself has since corrected the record.[…]
Graham didn’t seem to be aware of this during the hearing, however. When the witness pointed out that the story had been debunked, he stared into the distance without saying anything and moved right on to a new round of questioning.

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