Lindsey Graham says that if we don’t attack “ISIS, ISIL, whatever you guys want to call it”—and attack them right now—they’ll be attacking us on American soil before long. “This is about our homeland,” he said yesterday. Steve Benen correctly interprets Graham’s remarks:
In this case, Graham seems to be laying down a marker: if members of the Islamic State, at some point in the future, execute some kind of terror strike on Americans, Lindsey Graham wants us to blame President Obama — because the president didn’t stick to the playbook written by hawks and neocons.
I don’t think anyone is actively hoping for a terrorist attack on American soil. Just as I don’t think anyone was actively hoping to keep the American economy in ruins back in 2009. Still, these are cases where ideology and politics line up nicely: if something bad does happen, Republicans want to lay down a marker making sure that everyone knows whose fault it is.
Sometimes this doesn’t work: Republicans confidently predicted doom in 1993 when Bill Clinton raised taxes, for example. But wrong predictions are quickly forgotten. Occasionally, however, predictions are right, and then they can be milked forever. When Ronald Reagan insisted that tax cuts would supercharge the economy, and the economy then dutifully improved, his reputation was cemented forever—even though tax cuts played only a modest role in the economic recovery of the 80s.
Another major terrorist attack on the American homeland is bound to happen sometime. Who knows? It might even happen within the next year. And make no mistake: if it does happen, Lindsey Graham wants to make sure you know who to blame. If it doesn’t happen, well—look! Gay climate Obamacare!
