Oh, My Stars and Garters!
Dust off the fainting couch, because there’s a lady threatening to run a primary campaign against Senator Huckleberry down there in South Carolina, and all that it takes to give Lindsey the vapors is to have someone speculate that, maybe, if the moon stays in the House Of Wingnuttia, which is to say that it remains in retrograde, they might consider the possibility of perhaps, who knows, running against him from the Republican Right. This will cause Lindsey, once he is revived with spirits of camphor and a discreet shot of sherry, to start running to his right again.
Any way, according to Ed Kilgore, who keeps track of such matters, the woman in question is Nancy Mace, and she has all the right intellectual credentials to scare the socks off Huckleberry, who has very scare-able socks.
The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. The Declaration of Independence. To some these are little more than historical documents, but to conservatives these are the law of the land. It is clear as one reads them, the foundation of our country was built with limited government and the free market in mind.
And to Antonin Scalia, they are bathmats. (And the Constitution is the “law of the land” to everyone, as is the Affordable Care Act.) Of course, there is not in any one of those documents anything resembling a reference to “free markets” as they are currently understood. But do go on, I am keen to learn.
With congressional approval at an all time low, it’s easy to understand why some would prefer to appear on television sets rather than face their constituents back at home. President Reagan once said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” that we must fight for it, protect it and hand it down to future generations. Yesterday South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham endorsed President Obama’s intrusive arm of big brother regarding the collection of data and phone records: “I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.” Senator Graham went on to challenge Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. In his attack, Graham leads us to believe that “In Senator Paul’s world” those who value the constitution would leave America in a weakened position against its enemies. However, true conservatives believe that we can follow the constitution and defend our country against the enemy without sacrificing our freedom.
True liberals believe this, too, and did even back in 2002, when every Republican in the Congress wet themselves and voted for the Patriot Act. Sister Mace’s voice went umremarked.
In Senator Graham’s world, arming al-Qaeda in Syria is a good idea. In Senator Graham’s world, your rights as an American citizen are granted by the ruling political class and not by our Creator. In Senator Graham’s world, government should always be trusted but never the American citizen. In Senator Graham’s world, the Constitution doesn’t exist. In Senator Graham’s world, the entire Bill of Rights is negotiable. In Senator Graham’s world, our constitutional rights seem constantly up for debate. In Senator Graham’s world, he says we’re fighting for freedom but is the first to surrender all of them.
According to Sister Mace, Lindsey Graham believes that the Constitution “does not exist.” A couple more like this, and one sour poll, and Huckleberry will next be seen swinging into Damascus, bandoliers across his chest and a knife between his teeth.