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Lindsey Graham Threatens To Hold All Pending Nominations Over Benghazi

Doug Mataconis
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South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is threatening to place a hold on all pending nominations unless the Obama Administration provides more information about the Benghazi attack:

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday he will hold up “every appointment” in the Senate until more questions are answered on Benghazi.

“I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors [of the attack in Benghazi] are being made available to the Congress,” Graham said on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends.” “I’m tired of hearing from people on TV and reading about stuff in books.”

Graham (R-S.C.), who also tweeted about wanting to talk to those survivors, said Congress needs to “up its game”. He called for a joint select committee and addressed House Republicans on their efforts to continue pressing the administration on Benghazi.

“If we don’t have a joint select committee to get out of this stove piping problem, we’re never going to get the truth,” Graham said.

Yes, this is Graham running for reelection amid a multi-pronged Tea Party challenge in the primary.

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32 responses to “Lindsey Graham Threatens To Hold All Pending Nominations Over Benghazi”

  1. Moosebreath Avatar
    Moosebreath

    Because, of course, both sides do it.

  2. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    When the hell is his primary? This pre-primary grandstanding is getting really irritating.

  3. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    Any slender hope that obstructionism falters after the shutdown fiasco … goes up in puff of smoke.

  4. Ebenezer_Arvigenius Avatar
    Ebenezer_Arvigenius

    Yawn

  5. David M Avatar
    David M

    In their attempt to expose the “Benghzi!!!” cover-up, the GOP have essentially covered it up for the Obama Administration. Congratulations to the GOP, they are now throwing a temper tantrum over the results of their own actions.

    (Not that there was anything to cover up, but obviously we should have learned something from the attack. Thanks to the GOP, that became less likely.)

  6. Tony W Avatar
    Tony W

    Makes as much sense as shutting down the government to avoid giving people access to health care coverage. As @gVOR08 implies above, this gerrymandering scheme has truly backfired.

    In the news today another round of premature death diagnoses for the Tea Party is underway, only time will tell if the moderates can step up and take charge of the party. I suppose I’m just angry with myself for repeatedly overestimating the American population.

  7. Stonetools Avatar
    Stonetools

    And this is why talk of the Republican Party moderates driving back the tea party and reforming the Republican Party make no sense.

  8. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    Tell you what Lindsay, as long as you agree that we should open up the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon (240 Americans killed) to see what the president, the military, and the State Department knew, I’ll agree that Benghazi (4 Americans killed) should be opened up for purposes of your indulging the Republican Party’s impeachment fetish.

  9. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    “If we don’t have a joint select committee to get out of this stove piping problem, we’re never going to get to stove pipe our own version of the truth,” Graham said.

    FTFY for you Lindsey.

    @Tony W: Don’t feel bad Tony, it is really hard not to. I always remind myself of what Winston Churchill once said about Americans: “Americans always do the right thing, but only after they try everything else first.” Then I remind myself that that was an overestimation of us too.

  10. Ron Beasley Avatar
    Ron Beasley

    The Senate would be a better place without Graham even if was some Teahardist zealot.

  11. Stonetools Avatar
    Stonetools

    @Ron Beasley:

    It is a fearsome thought. But maybe Lindsay Graham is the best that we can expect out of that insane asylum called South Carolina.

  12. C. Clavin Avatar
    C. Clavin

    Somewhere Jenos is touching himself inappropriately.
    BenGHaziiiiiii!!!!!!!

  13. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    I think Benghazi, even in the worst case, would be some flavor of screw-up, costing 4 lives.

    Even accepting that, who on earth would think that stopping all pending nominations for a 4-life screw-up was sane? The government has business to do. It doesn’t stop.

    I mean, accepted that Graham worries about a primary challenge, but therefore governance for the crazy, to get the crazy vote?

    Or is he just exploring how low Congressional ratings (esp. Republican ratings) can go?

  14. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    A senate hold is subject to the same 60 vote cloture as basically everything else in the all-filibuster all-the-time senate, so what difference does this make?

  15. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Gustopher: As far as I know, a senate hold is not even part of the rules, but is a senatorial tradition. In a way, I hope Graham tries to act on his threat, because this tradition needs to die ASAP.

  16. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    Nope- I was wrong. Seems that a secret hold is a tradition, but a hold is actually part of the rules. By god, I really don’t understand how the American political system did not collapse into an anarchy and/or military dictatorship yet.

  17. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @john personna:

    I mean, accepted that Graham worries about a primary challenge, but therefore governance for the crazy, to get the crazy vote?

    Well, it is S Carolina.

  18. Tony W Avatar
    Tony W

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ya, but the “S” is not that important

  19. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    Has he gotten around to introducing the resolution declaring war on Iran like he promised?

  20. Laurence Bachmann Avatar
    Laurence Bachmann

    @OzarkHillbilly: After Calhoun and Thurmond he must seem like a Bolshevik.

  21. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    Wow, now even 60 Minutes has been duped into thinking there might actually be a story behind Al Qaeda’s assassination of a US Ambassador. The fools…

  22. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    A Fox News correspondent says that the network was previously in contact with the witness to the Benghazi attacks that was featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes, but that they stopped talking to him when he asked them for money.

    An October 27 CBS 60 Minutes segment on the September 11, 2012 attacks on U.S. facility featured an interview with “Morgan Jones,” described by the network’s Lara Logan as a “former British soldier” and “security officer who witnessed the attack” who had adopted that pseudonym “for his own safety.”

    Asked by Fox News anchor Jenna Lee what information the “Jones” interview brought to the story, correspondent Adam Housley said that he had previously spoken to the man “a number of times and then we stopped speaking to him when he asked for money.”

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/28/60-minutes-benghazi-eyewitness-asked-fox-news-f/196623

  23. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @Timothy Watson: OK, Alice, we’re waaaaay down the rabbit hole on this one.

    You’re using Media Matters, citing Fox News, to discredit a CBS News story.

    1) Media Matters has been coordinating with the Obama administration to discredit critics — so Media Matters is acting as a propaganda arm of the Obama administration.

    2) Media Matters has declared war on Fox News, vowing to destroy them.

    I guess we know now which is more important to Media Matters — shilling for the Obama administration, not their war on Fox News.

  24. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    @Jenos Idanian #13: So you can’t trust what a correspondent on FOX News says?

  25. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I guess we know now which is more important to Media Matters — shilling for the Obama administration, not their war on Fox News.

    That’s not clear to me at all. I would hope that their war on Fox News is a top priority. Maybe Darrell Issa could investigate this too, after all there might be ties between Media Matters and the tragic events that transpired in Benghazi.

  26. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @Timothy Watson: OK, let’s go diving into that rabbit hole.

    1) 60 Minutes bases most of its story on this guy.

    2) Someone at Fox News says that the guy tried to sell his story — so we can’t believe him.

    3) Media Matters says we should trust this guy at Fox News, but they also say that we can never trust Fox News.

    4) Media Matters claims to be impartial, but has been caught coordinating with the Obama administration to go after their critics and defending the Obama administration. So we can’t trust Media Matters.

    All of which is peripheral to the core question: just what the hell happened in Benghazi? How did Al Qaeda score such a huge victory over the US by killing our ambassador?

  27. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    All of which is peripheral to the core question: just what the hell happened in Benghazi? How did Al Qaeda score such a huge victory over the US by killing our ambassador?

    Did you know that 240 marines died in the terrorist attack on the 1983 Marine Barracks in Lebanon, and current Republicans consider Benghazi to be the most the most egregious mistake/tragedy in modern American history? Pathetic.

  28. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @al-Ameda: The Beirut bombing was the result of very bad decisions and very bad rules of engagement. Also, carried out on the direct orders of Iran. We learned a lot from those mistakes.

    Benghazi? What lessons have been learned there?

    You’ve learned, apparently, that the best way to avoid asking questions is to pull the classic “SQUIRREL!” defense.

    And I think we’re overdue for yet another tedious round of “BUT IRAQ BUSHITLER LIED HALLIBURTON OIL!”, but I don’t feel like playing.

  29. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    @Jenos Idanian #13:
    Wasn’t Reagan negligent in the case of the Beirut bombings? Why weren’t there constant calls for endless investigations?

    More investigation of Benghazi is just part of a Republican effort to find something that could be used to impeach the president. Endless investigations are what finally resulted in the impeachment of a recent president. We’ve been there.

  30. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @al-Ameda: Wasn’t Reagan negligent in the case of the Beirut bombings? Why weren’t there constant calls for endless investigations?

    Because there wasn’t a need for an investigation — Reagan laid it all out and took the responsibility. We knew it was Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and the goddamned stupid rules of engagement that caused it. Benghazi, though, they were spinning a lie from day one. And still haven’t come clean.

  31. David M Avatar
    David M

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    You are correct that by choosing to focus on the non-existent “coverup”, the GOP has harmed our national security.

  32. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @al-Ameda: Wasn’t Reagan negligent in the case of the Beirut bombings? Why weren’t there constant calls for endless investigations?

    Funny, I don’t recall the Reagan administration telling everyone that the bombing was the fault of Jamie Farr for defaming the Lebanese people, but I was a lot younger then…

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