Earlier today, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a Senate investigation of James Comey, saying that “Lindsey Graham is a voice of concern,” who could be instrumental in bringing aboard moderate Republicans.
As if to prove his point, Graham, the only Republican who seems genuinely troubled that Russia just elected our new president, warned today that we “Don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what Russia is up to — they’re trying to undermine democracies all over the world,” adding in another tweet that,
“Russia is trying to break the backs of democracies – and democratic movements – all over the world.”
The National Review‘s David French tried to put it in words Republicans could understand:
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“Imagine, Republicans, what you would think after losing a close election, then finding out Russia was interfering on Hillary’s behalf.”
Don’t get the idea, however, that Lindsey Graham wants to undo what Putin has wrought. He doesn’t:
I'm not challenging the outcome of the election, but very concerned about Russian interference/actions at home & throughout the world.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 10, 2016
Sadly, Republicans have had no problems with entertaining appalling double-standards for the past eight years, and they’re not likely to discover an objection, let alone a missing moral compass, at this late date. Rather, they will take what Putin gave them and run.
Like Graham.
Other Republicans will have to figure out how to respond to the fact that what we have known all along can no longer be denied. Besides ignoring it. Or pretending it didn’t happen. Or Benghazi!
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who rationalized the problem away with a casual,
All this "news" of Russian hacking: it has been going on for years. Serious, but hardly news
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) December 10, 2016
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) reports Fox News,
“[I]s calling for former CIA deputy director Mike Morell to be recalled to testify before Congress, following a Fox News report on his role in editing the administration’s ‘talking points’ on the Benghazi terror attack.”
No surprise, since Benghazi is a fake scandal where all the fake facts are firmly in their control and it’s a nice distraction from real news.
Even if you don’t care that the election was stolen by a foreign power, there is always the fact that as even Chuck Todd had to acknowledge, “The implication in the Trump transition statement is that he doesn’t believe a single thing from the CIA,” has all sorts of implications, including the fact that the CIA reputation will be toast if Trump “questions their findings so publicly.”
What we are seeing is quite remarkable, a president-elect taking the side of a foreign power over his own country’s intelligence agencies, although we’ve never seen a president-elect in that position as a result of said foreign power’s machinations.
America’s reaction to what amounts to a Russian coup should not be partisan, and Americans deserve better than the GOP’s lukewarm reaction to the news.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
