Report: Lindsey Graham Is Running Scared From Fox News
In an article dramatically titled “As the World Burns,” Ryan Lizza gives readers of The New Yorker a lengthy account of Washington’s inept handling of climate change issues. In the process, Lizza also paints an unflattering portrait of Sen. Lindsey Graham, revealing that the Republican is afraid of losing his conservative bona fides. So much so, in fact, that he tried to expedite the bipartisan climate change bill “before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was a serious process.”
His comments on the bill — which he worked on with the Democartic Sen. John Kerry and the Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman — are a strong indicator of how perilous congressional bipartisanship can be for the minority party, particularly in an election year, and especially considering the power wielded by media outlets like Fox News. Lizza further quotes Graham as saying:
The second [the people at Fox News] focus on us, it’s gonna be all cap-and-tax all the time, and it’s gonna become just a disaster for me on the airwaves. We have to move this along as quickly as possible.
The article also tells of how Graham’s team reacted when Fox News did focus on them:
[Matthew]Rimkunas, Graham’s climate-policy adviser, sent [Lieberman aide Danielle] Rosengarten an e-mail. The subject was “Go to Fox website and look at gas tax article asap.” She clicked on Foxnews.com: “WH Opposes Higher Gas Taxes Floated by S.C. GOP Sen. Graham in Emerging Senate Energy Bill.” The White House double-crossed us, she thought. The report, by Major Garrett, then the Fox News White House correspondent, cited “senior administration sources” and said that the “Obama White House opposes a move in the Senate, led by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, to raise federal gasoline taxes within still-developing legislation to reduce green house gas emissions.” Including two updates to his original story, Garrett used the word “tax” thirty-four times.
“This is horrific,” Rosengarten e-mailed Rimkunas.
“It needs to be fixed,” he responded. “Never seen lg this pissed.”
Graham, who The New Yorker says has “a reputation as a Senate maverick — but not one who actually [gets] things done,” was also said to have been bullied by his conservative colleagues. “Hey, Lindsey, how many times have you talked to Rahm [Emmanuel] today?” is one ‘insult’ that the apparently uncreative congressional Republicans would hurl toward the South Carolina senator, and part of what would eventually help kill the climate change bill.
Check out the whole story here to read more about Graham, Kerry, Lieberman, and the rigors of bipartisan legislation.
