The Down-Home Dauphin Deals The Drama

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says he'll pick up his climate change ball and go home and filibuster his own bill unless the Democrats drop immigration reform completely.  Brian Beutler:

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided that he would bump climate-and-energy legislation behind immigration reform as his next priority, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was apoplectic. Graham, along with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), had spent months drafting a climate/energy bill, and was prepared to introduce it Monday, when, enraged by Reid's plan, he backed out.

Earlier today, Reid appeared to reverse course, saying climate/energy would be the next logical issue to address, followed only afterward by immigration reform. So everything's groovy, right?

Far from it. Tonight, Graham told me that he will filibuster his own climate change bill, unless Reid drops all plans to turn to immigration this Congress.

"Immigration was interjected before we rolled out the [climate and energy] bill not because anybody's serious about passing it, but because Harry has got a political problem with the Hispanic community," Graham told me tonight. "It makes the heavy lift of energy and climate impossible and everybody knows that."

That's funny.  Seems to me that the people that made the heavy lift impossible by forcing immigration into the national spotlight are Arizona Republicans who passed the country's most draconian immigration law.  In fact, if there's anything both sides in the Arizona debate agree on, it's the need for a federal response.  Even Graham himself wanted one.

But that's before he became a hated RINO in the eyes of the Tea Party.  Now he has bridges to burn, and the time for the rope-a-dope strategy is over.  He's hitting back hard.

Graham has said for days that he's dropped out of climate/energy talks, but pressed tonight, he said that he will filibuster his own bill if Reid tries to bring it up without tabling immigration altogether.

"If they can do this without me, go ahead.... I am not going to be part of an energy-climate process that has no hope of success," Graham said. "I am not going to let that happen with my vote."

The petulant Party of No wants it their way or no way at all.  Given their own chance at immigration reform, the Republicans failed miserably.  But they'll be damned if they let the Democrats pass the bill they tried to in 2006.  The Democrats proved they can get things done with health care reform.  The Republicans aren't going to make that same mistake again now that they have 41 votes in the Senate.  The tyranny of the majority continues, and Dauphin Graham here is letting the peasants know they can eat cake.

Nothing will pass.  The GOP will block everything, financial reform, cap and trade, immigration reform, everything.  They will not give Obama another victory, period.  And they figure the American people will aid and abet them come November.  It's scorched earth as far as the Republicans are concerned.  They figure things can't get worse for them, they're out of power.

Things certainly can get worse for us, however.