Eleanor Clift: How Lindsey Graham Became the Trump Whisperer

[babylonsister]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lindsey-graham-became-the-trump-whisperer?ref=home

How Lindsey Graham Became the Trump Whisperer
The senator who called Trump a ‘jackass’ is now singing the praises of a president who’s suddenly talking about signing a comprehensive immigration bill.
Eleanor Clift
01.11.18 5:00 AM ET


Just months after offering himself as the voice of Republican opposition, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been following the president around like a dog, as Donald Trump might put it, palling around with him on the golf course and talking him up on teevee like a faithful surrogate.

“I am still trying to figure out what turned Lindsey Graham from a patriot and man who put country over party into a stooge for Trump,” AEI’s Norm Ornstein tweeted after Graham, together with fellow Republican Chuck Grassley, lodged a criminal referral last Friday asking the Justice Department to investigate Richard Steele, the former British spy and author of the dossier dat the heart of the Russia investigation.

“It’s one thing to play golf a couple of times, you can make the case, the guy is president and you might temper some of his insanity by flattering him,” Ornstein told the Daily Beast. “But when you begin to act as an enabler to scotch, block or discredit the Russia investigation, that takes it to another level where you become an accessory in the obstruction of justice.”

snip//

“Lindsay Graham is shameless, but he’s not a moron,” says the senate staffer. “Trump is the easiest guy in the world to manipulate. You kiss his ass and keep kissing his ass. Anything other than that, and he will turn on you.”

Asked on Meet The Press Sunday why he’s suddenly so cozy with Trump, he replied: “Because he's president of the United States, he's going to make a decision about immigration, I've been working on for a decade. He's president of the United States, going to make a decision about North Korea, which is one of the biggest threats to the world at large. He's going to decide whether or not to stay in the Iranian agreement. I've enjoyed his company. He beat me like a dog. I've said everything I know to say about him. I used every adjective on the planet. I lost, he won. And I feel an obligation to help him where I can. I've enjoyed working with him. I don't think he's crazy. I think he's had a very successful 2017. And I want to help him where I can. And we should all want him to be successful. He's got a lot on his plate.”

Watching this virtuoso performance, Paul Equale, a lawyer and longtime Democratic activist, told the Daily Beast he thinks Graham is positioning himself with Trump to be the truth teller, the figure who has the stature and the personal relationship to go to the White House and tell the president it’s time to go like Senator Barry Goldwater told Richard Nixon in 1974.

That’s not Graham’s only game, Equale hastens to add. There’s only one president at a time, and Graham would rather be next to him, pushing for his principles and ideas, than on the outside throwing rocks.

snip//

As this presidency unfolds, we will soon know whether Graham’s transformation will have a payoff. Washington is all abuzz about Trump’s receptivity to working out a citizenship path for the DACA kids, the dreamers, and maybe the 11 million undocumented immigrants living among us. Graham is one voice who’s got the President’s ear. If he’s also playing the long game and positioning himself to put country above party, should that need arise with a president whose untethered behavior raises alarm bells, we should know that soon enough too.

[oasis]

1. The hermit crab, Graham, ditches his McCain shell and snuggles under Trump.

Lindsey Graham is all about Lindsey Graham.

[Scarsdale]

3. I agree.

Apart from following McCain all over the world what has he actually ACCOMPLISHED? He is on the Sunday bobble head shows almost every week. Does he, like tRump, really think he is photogenic? Neither of them are. Graham is looking very jowly of late. Does he join Two Scoops Donnie in bed for the 6:30 McDonald meals?

[oasis]

5. Amazing how much mileage he's gotten out of an empty suit. nt

[Perseus]

2. I just finished reading "Babbit" - 1922 -

by Sinclair Lewis, the same author of "It Can't Happen Here!", both I think should be read by everyone who wants an understanding of American society and how it has not changed in 100 years.

Technology moves along, but bad habits, prejudices, racism and other bad traits a human can have just move along in parallel with technology but they do not evolve, technology does, but those human traits do not.

It is truly a vicious cycle. The base expects that kind of rhetoric, the republican politicians feed it consistently. The way I see it is that, for sure some of these republicans have those bad traits ingrained in their characters, a seed most probably planted by their parents, they grow up hating other people who do not look like them, those in good economic standing grow up hating people who do not have as much as they do, and so on, but I also feel that some of these republicans are people with very weak characters who have a very hard time hanging on to their principles, or at least principles that were taught to them by their parents, but because they see a need to feed their base they never change the rhetoric, and so the vicious cycle.

Have you ever wonder why republicans act like Lemmings? why they all repeat the same ideas almost verbatim? And so...time moves on, but bad habits just walk with time, never evolving into something good.

[Cosmocat]

7. I know SO MANY otherwise decent

and even giving and kind people who are relentless, entrenched zombies politically.

Its mind boggling.

That said, you are spot on here, and I have been saying/posting this for a LONG time now.

Not sure how we pull out of this - it just keeps getting worse as time goes on.

[longship]

9. Nicely put.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Or the Kremlin could be blackmailing him

[uponit7771]

6. +1, Russia would release via wikileaks evidence that the KGOP knew they were taking Russian money

... and a majority of America would believe it outright.

[tanyev]

8. I think that's giving Lindsey way too much credit.

Blackmail is far more likely. He's not the only Trump critic who's done a 180.

[lagomorph777]

10. +1 I think Turd has Kompromat on most of the RePutins in Congress...

...courtesy of his pal Vlad.

[Scruffy1]

11. Pure BS.

Graham has always been a one note Johnny selling fear. He has no real beliefs, scruples or morals. He would kiss the devils ass and like it, if he thought it was good for him. Why this idiot gets so much press coverage I have no idea. The evil bastard only cares about one thing-Graham.

[lark]

12. That's a very optimistic take on this.

I think that Russia got the goods on Graham when they hacked Repug emails and have shared that with drumpf who is blackmailing Graham. It's probably the carrot and stick routine, but Graham is truly an idiot if he thinks the carrot will actually materialize unless he puts something in there that will personally benefit Hair Furor.

[Javaman]

13. "trying to figure out what turned Lindsey Graham from a patriot and man who put country over party"

money

[SHRED]

14. Maybe Trump threatened to out him?