Being Lindsey Graham

I posted over the weekend about Lindsey Graham’s about-face on the climate bill.  The Washington Post has a more sympathetic view, which I thought I should report out of fairness:

And this is why Graham is angry: He’s taken a huge risk to be the lone Republican on climate change. Patrick Creighton, a flack for the conservative Institute for Energy Research, says that Graham’s involvement makes him “part of one of the most economically devastating pieces of legislation this country has ever seen, no more, no less.” And now it looks like Democrats are going to leave that hanging there, moving to an immigration reform effort that won’t pass but might split the Republican Party — creating massive problems for pro-reform Republicans like, well, Lindsey Graham.

Moreover, Graham is right on the merits: Moving a climate change bill this year is more important than moving an immigration bill. There’s a point-of-no-return on climate change: If you don’t start getting carbon emissions down in the near future, it’ll be too late. Immigration, conversely, is bad, but it’s not getting dramatically worse or harder to fix with each passing month.

OK, maybe there’s a point there.  But refusing to support legislation that you think is good for the country doesn’t seem like a good way to express your anger, even if the anger is justified.

Climate Politics, federal climate legislation, Lindsey Graham