Lindsey Graham Continues His Temper Tantrum Over Benghazi

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


ThinkProgress reports that Sen. Lindsey Graham has decided to continue his spectacular temper tantrum over Benghazi, telling Fox News last night, “I haven’t forgotten about Benghazi. Hillary Clinton got away with murder, in my view.” He’s not using this in its idiomatic meaning, either. He literally seems to think that Hillary Clinton has cleverly wriggled out from under a Murder One conviction via some kind of Machiavellian trickery.

Next up in Graham’s Benghazi crosshairs is defense secretary Leon Panetta. Graham has now decided that he won’t rest until Panetta testifies too, and to make sure that happens he’s going to block Chuck Hagel’s SecDef nomination until he’s got Panetta sweating under the klieg lights. “Why would we not want to understand what happened during the attack itself?” he asked Greta Van Susteren rhetorically. “How could our secretary — what happened for seven hours? Why were there no military assets available on September the 11th?”

This is very close to literal insanity. Graham knows perfectly well that these questions have been answered, and he knows perfectly well that Panetta won’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know. So why is he putting on this performance? My theory is simple: Graham likes being a maverick, but voters in South Carolina don’t really want a maverick as their senator. They want a 100 percent ACU-certified hard-right conservative. Since Graham doesn’t want to give them that, he has to compensate for it with periodic high-profile eruptions that demonstrate the kind of spittle-flecked hatred of Barack Obama his constituents want. It makes up for his occasional apostasy over climate change or immigration, and shows that he’s really one of them even if he does have a few peculiar pet causes they don’t understand.

Either that or he really is crazy. I guess I’m not entirely sure which.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate