Religious McCarthyism

In the above (h/t, TPM), Franklin Graham, son of seemingly ubiquitous and well-loved televangelist Billy Graham, is using his media access to discuss the people he believes to be surrounding the current president who are some kind of Israel-hating Muslims. About which he has no solid proof and can name no names, but he's pretty damn sure "radical Islamists" have infiltrated the US government.

I'll never not stop pointing put that there is a clear racialist component to the point of view alleged by Franklin Graham, because Franklin Graham has decided that crusading (ahem) is his appropriate legacy and because something about Obama just looks "Muslim-y". But it's also political in that he seems to want the President to agree with, say, Netanyahu regarding what to do about Iran, when the right answer may very well be continuing to try and get a diplomatic solution because a military solution is, actually, bonkers.  Which I think would be more apparent if this "what side are you on" game weren't being played.

Are the Benghazi Talking Points Quite Done, Here?

The use of the deadly attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans as a political tool has frankly astonished me since the foreign policy naif Mitt Romney had the bad taste to broach it the very evening that it happened. For that reason, I see a kind of lukewarm vindication of the Obama Administration's public statements regarding the matter in the NYT's in-depth study on it,  which draws two meaningful conclusions: that al-Qaeda was not involved in the attack and that it did stem in part from the widespread protests over a rather dumb bigoted little video, just as was stated by current NSA Susan Rice.

It has long seemed to me that the Benghazi affair as initiated by the Romney folks was a matter of using President Obama's perceived strength (as having authorized the successful raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden) against him. The failure on the Romney side began with the claim that a statement attempting to ameliorate matters from the Cairo  embassy was a sign that the Obama Administration actually sided with radical Islam, but this blew up into a claim that the administration was actually somehow derelict in defending the Libyan embassy from attack from several others on the Republican side, including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa. The use of the Benghazi tragedy as an indictment of the Obama Administration spans a number of criticisms that conservatives have had with the Commander-in-Chief--that he is Muslim or more sympathetic to radical Islam, that he isn't a real leader, or that he wants America to fail.

It's pretty much always been bullshit. Senators McCain and Graham did the best job of giving the game away when they failed to attend a briefing on the matter, opting instead to hang their faces in front of a camera pointing fingers. Rep. Issa, supposedly a kind of watchdog, has fluffed the matter at intervals, but is mostly of the school of investigation that insists that if he doesn't hear what he thinks he ought, there is surely a cover-up afoot.

And it appears that, for the time being, he is not apt to drop this very tasty rag while there is yet some flavor in it:

On Sunday, “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked Issa to respond to The Times story, which was published online Saturday. The story also said the Benghazi attacks were “fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.” 

“We have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi,” Issa said Sunday. “People from this administration … have said under oath there was no evidence of any reaction to a video. 

“What we know, David, is the initial reports did not name this video as the prime cause,” he added.

Is that so? (No, it is not. And being a very concerned person, he might perhaps have looked at more than a few media accounts, no?) He's also said that if a group alleges it has some connection with al-Qaeda, then that is good enough for him, which must be very validating to jihadi-come-lately groups who can at least claim to know somebody who knows somebody.

I'm afraid until Fox News gives the high sign, the idea that there was something more than usually rotten in Benghazi will be as certain a thing as the unbearable whiteness of Santa Claus in some quarters.

What I do want to point out, though, is that there is a sobering side to this in that the militants who made this attack came from the people the US supported in the overthrow of Qaddafi. I think there is an analogy that could be preemptively applied to involvement in Syria, for example. If anyone has the ear of, say, Sen McCain, they might want to try to explain it to him. I sort of hope President Obama has figured it out, but I've no real idea. Something about good intentions.

I am Concerned And Disappointed By Sen. Lindsey Graham

Just to be clear, when US Senators go concern-trolling over what an official says on a tv program, they really need to be sure that they understand the issue that they are concern-trolling about.  When someone with the gravitas of former JAG attorney Lindsey Graham puts his field expertise into the real parsing of whether UN Ambassador Rice implied that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi could have been done by extremists who joined the original spontaneous attack or maybe even included al-Qaida members as not being too unlikely was just not emphatic enough of a condemnatory, uncertain, but fuck-it-we-know-better kind of statement to make in public on a Sunday TV program where people might otherwise be influenced by more informed people like Sen. Graham and Sen. McCain--who at this point in time know one thing for sure, which is: THEY WANT ANSWERS!

I might be leaving out Sen. Kelly Ayotte because I just don't even know who the hell she is yet.  Sorry.  But seriously: who the hell is she?

I am more concerned than ever before about Sen. Lindsey Graham than I've ever been. He clearly has questions, and I for one think he needs to make his real concerns public immediately so the American people can understand exactly what he thinks went wrong. I think we need to know when he thought everything was wrong, and why he thinks it got said the wrong way it got said. I think he owes us some serious answers, because a terrible thing happened and I think that the example of Sen. Graham should be that we never forget that terrible things happen, and when questions are raised, we get answers! From him, as a responsible person! If not others!

If Senator Graham is even more disturbed than before, he needs to provide details of what disturbed him so that the American people know, for sure, why he is a disturbed person. Was he disturbed before he saw Joe Lieberman and John McCain get primaried? Is he disturbed because he thinks if he doesn't speak out about how disturbed about stuff he is--he might get primaried? Does he think he can keep this shit up for two years? If he can't, does he think anyone will remember this shit two years from now? (He's a Senator from SC. They remember seceding. Well, nothing secedes like success. Success to SC in seceding if you take Sen. Graham with you, although that isn't especially patriotic a thought is it?  So stop thinking unpatriotic thoughts about secession, then. Are we a democracy or what? #partyoflincoln).

Anyhoo, I am of the opinion that Lindsey Graham lives under a bridge and collects tolls. I say he isn't being serious, here. In other words, the boy ain't right. Maybe he should try harder at being responsible about the budget that the senate isn't the boss of, but Graham will pretend to be the Norquist-dumping semi-centrist about.

Or am I being too literal about Sen. Graham's deep concerns? Because if so, and he doesn't really have anything to say about why he's so troubled about UN Ambassador Susan Rice copying onto the official intelligence regarding the event, as would be appropriate from a security and a diplomatic view--I would have to assume he has nothing and just wants attention.

Okay. I'll pay attention.  It won't be nice attention, though.