BY WILLIAM C. HENRY It hasn’t been formally consented to by the full U.S. Senate, but following yesterday’s 14/11 party-line Armed Services Committee vote, it appears that America’s next Secretary of Defense will almost certainly be the former Republican Senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel. The committee’s “advice and consent” work was hardly a seamless process, however, thanks in large part to Tea Party suck-up Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Turns out the hearing had to be adjourned immediately following each of his opening remarks/questioning periods so that janitors could refill the room deodorizers. 
Sure, there were a number of other Republican senators exhibiting the same stomach-turning rudeness, animus and plain old jackassiness towards Mr. Hagel, but it was Lindsey’s particular subject matter and self-righteous tone throughout — along with Chuck’s seeming at-a-loss-for-words Casper Milquetoast response(s) — that grabbed my attention. It occurred to me that Mr. Hagel’s hesitancy to answer in kind may very well have been dictated by an inherent sense of civility and decorum. And, so, recognizing that yours truly on the other hand has never been burdened with any such politesse or propriety, I’ve decided to take it upon myself to properly slice and dice the inquisitor and the particular “disagreements” he displayed with the appointee.
Obviously for Senator Graham holding on to your seat isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Not that he ever had any real principles to begin with, his latest extortion excursion proves unequivocally that he never met one he couldn’t avoid or pretend never existed. Because he faces the possibility (read: probability) of a 2014 primary challenge from the Tea Party, he’s decided to chuck (no pun intended) all pretense and revert to his natural duplicitous self. He’s decided that unless the administration informs him of “the last time it lied about Benghazi,” he’ll shoot them a filibuster finger and go home. As is plain to see, it isn’t just Graham’s inherent bigotry and blood lust that makes him the poster child for the Republican party, it’s his utter phoniness.
From the outset, Graham set his sights on making Hagel out to be an anti-Semite. He repeatedly ripped into him over an inadvertent comment he made back in 2006 to the effect that the “Jewish lobby” tended to “intimidate” a lot of folks on Capitol Hill. He’d also said that he felt Congress had done some pretty “dumb things” as a result of said intimidation. To hear Graham tell it, you’d think Hagel had denigrated every person of Jewish descent who’d ever inhabited dry land or arks at sea! Although Hagel had long ago apologized for his choice of words, Lindsey wasn’t buying it. “Name one person, in your opinion, who is intimidated by the Israel lobby in the United States Senate,” Graham demanded, adding, “Name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing by the Israeli, Jewish lobby.”
Well, bingo! Right off the bat it was obvious it wasn’t Hagel’s veracity and candor that should have been under scrutiny, but Graham’s. Needless to say, there isn’t an honest legislator (of course it’s an oxymoron) — including the fourth monkey fool in question here — who doesn’t know that the Jewish-Israeli-Zionist (pick whichever you feel most comfortable with) lobby has been a colossally effective intimidation machine on Capitol Hill for some 50 years running, and that for over ten years now its principle political action organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has been rated the most powerful lobby in America! Wake up and smell the capitulation, Senator, then go knuckle under your rock!
As for “naming one dumb thing Congress has been goaded into doing by the Israeli, Jewish lobby,” I think 60-plus years of indulging its every whim — to the complete and utter exclusion of anything whatsoever that could conceivably be termed confirmative or supportive of the Palestinian point of view — should suffice. You know, Senator, there’s an interesting correlation to the Palestinian “situation” in America’s background. I’d suggest that you acquaint yourself with it, but recognizing that previous scans to determine if even a smidgeon of open-mindedness or common decency resides in that pea-sized brain of yours have come up empty, I take solace in the knowledge that it wouldn’t alter your shallow, self-aggrandizing, altogether phony little self one iota anyway! Can I get an Amen?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fed up early stage septuagenarian who has actually been most of there and done most of that. Born and raised in the picturesque Pocono Mountains. Quite well educated. Very lucky to have been born into a well-schooled and somewhat prosperous family. Long divorced. One beautiful, brilliant daughter. Two far above average grandsons. Semi-retired (how does anyone manage to do it completely these days?) and fully-tired of bullshit. Uncle of the Editor-In-Chief.