"Does Lindsey Graham Need An Intervention?"

That's what Joe Scarborough asked today on MSNBC's Morning Joe.  In  recent weeks, Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina, has grabbed every possible moment of TV face time and brought truckloads of crazy while doing it.  To wit:

He's got a bug up his ass about Benghazi.  He blew up Susan Rice before she even had a chance. 

He treated the Benghazi hearings like the Spanish Inquisition and said Hilary Clinton "got away with murder."

He held up the Hagel and Brennan confirmations so he could continue to showboat about Benghazi and his "unanswered questions."  (Never mind that one has nothing to do with the other.)

During his clownish turn at the gun hearings, he asserted that semi-automatic weapons with large capacity ammo clips are pretty much required for proper home and self defense.

And in his latest, he says we should kill Obamacare as a means to avoid sequestration.  (Oh, Lindsey!  The sequester forces a number of budget cuts in order to cut the deficit.  The CBO long ago found that Obamacare will, uh, reduce the deficit.  So . . . WTF?)


Graham has had occasional moments of clarity and reason (e.g. on the environment), but in reality he's an orthodox conservative who votes the GOP party line more than 90% of the time, and sounds like Gomer Pyle while doing it.  But that's not good enough for the rednecks in the red state of South Carolina.  Many of them think Lindsey's a wuss, a RINO.

Therefore, Ol' Lindsey's trying to placate the local Tea Baggers and show 'em he can be just as facts-be-damned crazy as they are.  Lately, he's been pretty convincing.  And if he's lucky, his silly suck-up act will prevent a serious primary challenge in 2014.

If you prefer traditional Republican nuts to Tea Party nuts, like Joe Scarborough does, then Graham may need an intervention.  Myself, I don't care for either variety, so I'll leave Lindsey to his own devices and South Carolina to theirs.  Politically, that state is beyond help.  Mark Sanford, the vanishing governor, is making a comeback, for Chrissakes!

But I'm intrigued by the theory that a couple more batshit Tea Baggers, ala Ted Cruz, in Congress might actually benefit the progressive cause by further driving the the GOP into two irreconcilable idiot camps, thereby shining an even brighter light on the equally unattractive Beavis or Butthead sides of the same Republican coin.  Graham unseated by another troglodyte, all to the advantage of Democrats?  Might be a plan.  Or not.

In any event, whatever tiny respect I may once have had for Lindsey Graham is gone.