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But somewhere around spring of 2006 — I think before I even started my old blog — I was saying that Congress was acting more like it was being blackmailed or threatened with grievous consequences than anything like mere human greed and incompetence could account for. Some mentioned that all politicians get what is known as a "control file", a little dossier of their dirty deeds — real or might as well be real — used to make them do as they are told. The use of lavish rewards for compliance, coupled with extreme consequences for noncompliance is pretty damn persuasive.
I was skeptical. I thought it was so bad it had to be the threat of a nuke or another 9/11 making them act like psychopaths, but did allow as how the control files could plausibly be as effective. I remember being told by an election integrity busybody that her father had known Lindsey Graham in the JAG Corps, that notwithstanding him being a Republican, he's a patriot and a gentleman and no threat to our liberal values. I remember being nearly persuaded because Graham was making some darn patriotic noises in the hearings about all the offenses to the 4th Amendment we were so outraged about... until it just went away.
But Lindsey was John McCain's sidekick. Vocally supportive of all John McCain's perfidies in the Middle East. His traveling companion, and cheerleader, and maybe even valet. It was WEIRD. I thought that woman's dad had to have a screw loose or something, that these military men and their blind solidarity with each other just goes entirely too far sometimes. Lindsey flat out loved John McCain... blindly.
Yet... yet something still stranger has happened... maybe that blind solidarity again. This is what started it. You've all probably seen that video in one incarnation or another, in one context or another, but I've seen it about twenty times because I cannot lose the feeling that Lindsey was working for Kelly and Mattis, NOT fraternizing with the enemy, but receiving some kind of message from the enemy to convey to the generals, and you see him actually doing that here.
You see both generals looking at him expectantly, and Lindsey trying to look like nothing is weird, but Kelly doesn't take his hawk eye off Graham, waits for him to turn back toward him and makes the hand sign. Lindsey goes back to looking like nothing is going on and a few moments later goes over to whisper in Kelly's ear.
So Huma came up to give the poor grieving Lindsey a consoling hug and whisper in his ear. Then moments later Lindsey is whispering in Kelly's ear... and then very shortly after all this came down, Lindsey Graham recovers his darn patriotic noise making after more than a decade of sounding anything but.
Is it possible someone from the administration, probably Mattis and/or Kelly, came to Graham and told him they'd gotten his control file and he could relax? Is it possible Lindsey Graham has been given back his status as an American and a US Senator? Or are you more inclined to believe it's just a new faction of psychopaths giving him his marching orders now?
Did Donald Trump prove something to Lindsey Graham and get him on side?
Or did I just grow up on too many old movies?
pipe up any time....
