Lindsey Graham Has the Vapours

Because an honest evaluation of the situation in Libya upset him so.

This is what happened:

One week after President Obama demanded that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi cede power in Libya, the president’s top intelligence official predicted on Thursday, “over the longer term, that the regime will prevail” in Libya’s civil war, an assessment that cast significant doubt on efforts so far by the NATO allies to drive him from power.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that Colonel Qaddafi has a potentially decisive advantage in arms and equipment that would make itself felt as the conflict wore on.

That makes sense. Gaddafi has a shitload of money squirreled away. He has an air force, helicopters, armor and artillery. His army may not be worth beans if, say, the Egyptian army invaded, but it is probably capable of dealing with a bunch of rebels. Particularly since Gaddafi probably doesn't give a rat's ass about civilian casualties and if his army has to kill a goodly number of Libyan civilians in the process, it won't disturb his slumber in the least.

As I said, that evaluation makes sense. It's the sort of thing that one would expect an intelligence guy to say, when asked about how the Libyan civil war may end.

But no, ol' Miss Lindsey positively had an attack of the vapours, because he can't handle an honest assessment. Graham wants to hear things that comport with Wingnut ideology, not the facts on the ground. So Sen. Graham wants Gen. Clapper fired.

If the Obama Administration had any balls, the response to Graham would have three words in it; the first word would be "go" and the last word would be "yourself".

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I'm not commenting on the venality of the Republicans in Wisconsin or the fact that the GOP nationwide is ginning up fiscal crises in order to break labor unions. That's about what I expect from those modern-day Pinkertons. It is all about empowering the corporations and crushing down the middle and working classes and it has been that way for the last thirty years. And in some ways, I kind of feel, if ever so slightly, that if the people of Wisconsin were stupid enough to hand their state over to them, it sucks to be them.

No, what I want to mention is that just over 30 years ago, in September of 1980, a bunch of Polish shipyard workers formed a union. And the Republicans tripped over themselves at the time to cheer and support the Solidarność trade union. Oh, it was a great thing, said Republicans, for workers to unionize.

But not in this country. Because in this country, unions get in the way of providing huge tax cuts to the rich and the corporations. Unions stand in the way of slashing the wages for working men and women. Unions get in the way of full-blown exploitation. And our corporate overlords can't have that.