Shedding His Maverick Skin Once And For All
by digby
Huckleberry Graham finally removed the last tiny remaining piece of doubt among members of the political establishment and the press that his lugubrious "maverick" act was nothing but a scam. (It's been obvious to me for some time, but apparently he's very good at persuading people that this cornpone sanctimony is real.)
Turns out he just won't be able to vote for the climate change bill after all becauswe it doesn't contain enough offshore drilling. Shill, baby, shill.
Brad Plumer writes:
Graham's complaints here are ridiculous. The differences between the bill he wrote and the bill as it exists now are relatively trivial. His main complaint seems to be that Congress isn't embarking on an offshore drilling free-for-all. Well, sure. That's what happens when an oil company poisons large swathes of the Gulf of Mexico. It's going to be hard to get any major new drilling incentives passed right now. That's not some inherent flaw in the climate bill—it's just an indication that some of his colleagues actually seem to be learning or thing or two from the BP fiasco. This whole episode really makes you wonder if Graham was ever serious about energy and climate policy in the first place.
Uhm, no. What he was serious about was being a power broker in the senate, but they yanked his chain. And he was never, ever, not for a minute going to be a reliable vote. Sure, he might have followed through under certain circumstances. But he was just as likely to do what he's done --- drawl on about he really, really tried to be bipartisan, but the Democrat just wouldn't give an inch so --- more in sorrow than in anger, of course --- he just had to string them along until the last minute and then drop out. It's his shtick.
Plumer updated his post with this illustration of Mr Integrity's idea of principles:
[O]nce upon a time, Graham was saying stuff like this: "All the cars and trucks and plants that have been in existence since the Industrial Revolution, spewing out carbon day-in and day-out, will never convince me that's a good thing for your children and the future of the planet." But never say never. Here's Graham today: "We can have a debate about global warming, and I'm not in the camp that believes man-made emissions are contributing overwhelmingly to global climate change, but I do believe the planet is heating up." That was fast.
He was second in line to the maverick throne, but he saw what was happening to his pal McCain and abdicated. He is a bad faith actor and always has been. Nobody should ever make that mistake again.