I, for one, will gladly make "everything" Judiciary about Jeff Sessions' "record"---and given Graham's affinity for hate radio, I'll gladly make "everything" about his record, too.

What's Lindsey gonna do about it---devolve into a whiner? He already is, y'know....

I think sessions means that things will get a whole lot harder if Obama starts listening to the "netroots" not because they're on-line, but because they're pushing in a particular (leftward) ideological direction.

Clearly the country has moved to the left. However, no so far to the left that the New Haven firefighter case isn't hugely controversial to say the least.

Question is: Will Obama nominate a jose cabranes-type who wonders if New Haven didn't push affirmative action too far or a left wing ideologue like Sotomayor, who seems to think what New Haven did is just fine? If the latter, he'll probably have challenging confirmation on his hands.

"My hope is that our Democratic colleagues -- if you start listening to the bloggers -- if we're going to let the bloggers run the country, then the country's best days are behind us."

The use politico and Drudge, among others, to plant stories and push opinions. Not that Dems don't do it too, but it seems pretty hypocritical to then complain about blog influence.

Graham's a very fearful man. His party, and he, spent the better part of 8 years using fear as a tool to forward it's agenda. Now, when he sees the "other side" making sense he and his ilk are afraid that someone might listen to reason and not fearmongering. It's all posturing. They know Obama's SCOTUS pick will stick, and then stick it to them. What fun.

To the Hague!!!

"...if you start listening to the [pamphleteers] -- if we're going to let the [pamphleteers] run the country, then the country's best days are behind us."

Yeah. Lord help us if that wretched Thomas Paine ever held any sway in American politics!

Dog whistle politics. The right roots are happy, virtuous heartlanders, while the left roots are bearded anarchists subsidized by Elder of Zion George Soros.
It's not much to be proud of, but it's a margin of victory in the primary. A whore's got to eat, same as the rest of us.

Huckleberry Graham: "This is a democracy, you can't just go around listening to people's opinions!"

I'm delighted by Huckleberry's comments. They indicate that the Thugs know perfectly well that Sessions is a big vulnerability for them, and they're worried about it. That's all the encouragement anybody should need to go for the jugular. Make every fucking minute of the committee's confirmation hearings all about the unreconstructed Confederate sympathies of their ranking member.

I realize I am speculating here, but I think that Graham has no clue what bloggers actually do other than that blogging is the next cool thing that he heard about in the Wall Street Journal, just like teh Google, the internets, twittering, etc.

A dead giveaway to me is the people that refer to the Daily Kos as a "hate site" clearly don't understand that it consists of a multitude of individual citizens who happened to publish their thoughts on line. Because the leaders of the Republican party lack any kind of understanding of technology in the first place and because they are generally insecure people who do not have the courage of their convictions, they are very much set against any kind of real grass roots influence. The only real grass roots on the right consist of the Christianists and the Paulites, who are either led by their clergy or were the real organizers of the tea parties - and we saw how that went.

Another issue that I don't hear very often is that talk-radio is in fact quite anti-democratic, in that the talk show host can control which of the individual citizens get to speak their peace (and we're not even getting into who those citizens actually are). The "netroots" are the antitheses of this because anyone that is a good writer, writes often and has smart things to say will, if they stick with it, rise to the top.

Democrats shouldn't take opinion of bloggers into account, but it's OK for the GOP to march is lock step to the tune being called by one over-weight radio talk show host, I guess.

I think he's just instinctively against bloggers. Say it to yourself. "Bloggers". Can't trust those bloggers. See, bloggers don't think like normal folk. They aren't as intelligent, and so they get excited. Nothing worse than letting a blogger get uppity; then he starts to get all kinds of ideas. And the thought that bloggers might get the vote? Ridiculous. That way chaos lies. You know how these bloggers act. You've seen how they live.

oooh, Linds just got cross-wise with his best buddy's daughter, blogger Megan McCain!

I love the fact that Repubs keep saying "we have demographic challenges; we need to be more welcoming to minorities and youth which is where the electorate's future lies."

And then they say stupid stuff like "blogging is not a valid approach to politics." Way to go "beyond the edge" in that youth outreach. Wonder if it will work any better than demonizing immigrants did for their Hispanic outreach?

The newspapers (traditional centers of power) are in trouble. Some editors blame the internet instead of investors who are demanding unrealistic returns in bad times. Graham knows that his use of the term "bloggers" will play with them. His is calling on traditional media for help.

It's a good thing the Senate has to confirm all bloggers.

Sessions is a terrible individual, an old time southern racist, we should exploit this to the full. After all, Repubs exploit anything and everything. Anyone who lets Limbaugh and Joe the plumber speak for them are just crazy and deserve to be on the way out of the door.(Great about Savage, and a former KKK member to be barred from Britain)

general rule, when a neocon singles out people, ideas or events that he thinks should be dismissed or ignored or belittled, that means we should pay even more attention.

DBaker makes excellent points about GOP cluelessness about technology and aversion to real grassroots activism. However, I think the technology idiocy part applies more to other GOP dinosaurs than to Graham, who is a complete tool but more aware of the current century than most of his colleagues.

I think he's just got his frilly (prove me wrong) panties in a wad because he used to be able to say monumentally stupid things without being mocked by thousands within 15 minutes. He'd still be getting away with it, too, if it weren't for you damned kids!

Before we start attacking Jeff Sessions for being a racist, anybody want to give us some background? Calling somebody a racist is a damn serious charge. It needs to be supported with facts not merely assumed because he is a hard right conservative who talks with a Southern accent.

Closeted homosexual Lindsey Graham is afraid of bloggers? Ho ought to be more afraid of what those intolerant constituents of his in South Carolina would do if they realized his sexual orientation.

Nobody else has said it, so I'm going to: Radio shock jocks are OK, but bloggers aren't?

Cheap shots aside, the Republicans have their own bloggers, some of whom they take quite seriously. Plus, they're suppposed to be trying to get 'hip' to the kid stuff, right?

With the decline of newspapers in this country, blogs are the new letters-to-the-editor page.

It may be okay in the 21st century to put the bigot in the spotlight - after all, our social development and common sense have been greatly improved since the 1950s. I'm curious to see a high profile public engagement by someone like Sessions now that the Bushies don't have access to any kind of bully-pulpit! -Kevo

Yeah, Lindsey, the country would be so much off being led by right wing talk show hosts, eh? Session believing that the KKK was just a group of guys with a bit of a pot problem. No problem, there. Or going after the Civil Rights leaders, calling them Commies, no problem there. There have been many and still are decent folk with Southern accents, but, Sessions is not one of them.

The thing about bloggers, Lindsey...

God damn it, of course he gets it completely wrong. Again.

Y'see, the thing about bloggers is no one blogger gets any more attention and respect than she or he deserves. A blogger doesn't own whole chunks of media space the way traditional media outlets do and a blogger doesn't have automatic command over a sizable audience the way big-ticket establishment commentators do.

By the same token, bloggers aren't subject to the restraints that corporate media impose. Given the track record of mainstream journalism over the past couple of decades, readers seeking honesty and perspective have no choice but to turn to bloggers to avoid the wall-to-wall bamboozlement emanating from our patrician political class.

Did Graham have nothing to say as reporters became stenographers, and pundits hacks? Is that his view of the ideal Fourth Estate, sycophants for his party's agenda? True, the blogosphere abounds with charlatans, bigots and liars, but, funny thing, Graham's not worried about them "running the country", he's worried about the influence of honest, clear-eyed hard-hitters like Mr. Benen here.

Before we start attacking Jeff Sessions for being a racist, anybody want to give us some background? Calling somebody a racist is a damn serious charge. It needs to be supported with facts not merely assumed because he is a hard right conservative who talks with a Southern accent.

Ummm, if you were a regular reader of this blog, you would find this, for example:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018041.php

BTW, thanks shortstop - I realize that I was generalizing and I did throw the caveat of speculation first. That said, someone saying "letting the bloggers run the country" clearly does not understand what or who bloggers actually are in the first place. Graham might run around with a Blackberry, e-mailing back and forth with his BFFs McCain and Lieberman, but he, along with pretty much everyone in the GOP doesn't understand that you actually need policy and ideas to back up the message that you are sending.

Ten years ago, they could get away with making a 50-page booklet with some pretty color graphs and call it an "alternative budget". Now, they have all those bloggers actually scrutinizing said booklet. That is what they are upset about. Was it Jimmy Johnson who famously said "Money talks and Bullshit walks"? The GOP should take that message to heart rather than have 14-year boys talk like Elmer Fudd saying "conservative principles" over and over again - the Tinkerbell method still does not work, no matter how hard they try.

I'd add that not only should we go after Sessions, but f*ck Graham's offer - the GOP will fight *any* Obama SCOTUS nomination like crazy, so his offer was fraudulent.

DBaker I am a regular reader of this blog, but sadly I have other things going on in my life so I don't remember every post on every obscure Southern politician. My point stands. None of us should ever throw the charge of racism around casually. Not only is it unfair, it diminishes the horror of racism generally. It lowers the writer to the level of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio.

Perhaps next time you will post some evidence when you charge racism. Maybe a link for those who aren't regular readers.

No, the real problem with bloggers is that On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Or, translated, Graham can't tell what color the bloggers are. That makes them dangerous, since you don't know if you're opinion is being shaped by the right kind of people.

What's Lindsey gonna do about it---devolve into a whiner?

Not just any whiner, the leading GOP whiner, and has been for a number of years now. I like his new catch phrases "America's best days are behind her" and "makes me want to throw up". He's now adding those at the end of most of his sentences describing any Democratic policy or initiative.

Now, they have all those bloggers actually scrutinizing said booklet. That is what they are upset about.

Absolutely. And so you have the "Are we going to let these radicals run the country?" business (so reminiscent of other points in our history), which is understood by a few Republicans -- perhaps including Graham, perhaps not -- to be a bullshit talking point that is nonetheless necessary to push back against the democratic expression of criticism.

We're on the same page, anyway, about what they're doing and what their lack of understanding is. I have a glimmering based on other things he's said that Graham, unlike most of his colleagues, does understand that the dearth of viable policy is killing his own party, but he's determined to blame the messenger while he and his buds keep hitting themselves in the head with the same hammer. If my hunch is correct and he does know what's going on, he's actually worse than the ones who don't get it.

I have other things going on in my life so I don't remember every post on every obscure Southern politician.

This "obscure Southern politician" is becoming the ranking member of the Senate judiciary committee. As a lawyer, you should have an inkling of the importance of that post, particularly in enabling SC nominees to get out of committee.

My point stands. None of us should ever throw the charge of racism around casually.

None of us should, but no one is in this case. The fact that you're out of the loop not just here but also on the many other blogs and even MSM sources discussing Sessions's history of blatant racism doesn't mean anyone is "throwing the charge around casually."

Perhaps next time you will post some evidence when you charge racism. Maybe a link for those who aren't regular readers.

Well, for me , it's enough that he's a white republican from Alabama, but, actually, Steve did post at length about Session's track record a couple of days ago. And DBaker did post a link just now.

On a certain level, I can relate to Huey's position. For example, I am not too happy that my bricks-and-mortar Ph.D. can now be matched via an online-only one.

But the difference between Huey and I is that I recognize that the internets and its tremendous communication and information-dissemination capabilities represents an avenue for progression from 'bricks-and-mortar' education to web-based education, and from 'insiders-only' politics to people-powered politics.

It's all about access, and the ways of the past cannot dam the tide that the internets represents; those that cling to them, like Huey, will get swept away--and thankfully so.

As Shortstop posts about the importance of his ascending to the minority leadership of the Judiciary Committee, I would add his overseeing the Civil Rights laws. This is from someone who once went after and prosecuted Civil Rights leaders in Alabama. He is far from being "obscure". This and his comments about the KKK were part of the reasons the Senate rejected him for a Federal Judge appointment.

Shortstop: we prefer the term 'meddling kids' thank you very much.

I couldn't remember it at the time, Northzax! Thanks!

Taibbi's latest;

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/05/05/credit-card-companies-as-evil-villains-its-not-that-simple-los-angeles-times/

Despite all their twittering, the gop just doesn't *get* the Internet. And that's good for the Dems' side. Keep up the good work, mcconnell.

The claim "The notion that bloggers might try to "run the country" is silly, " that appeared to be said without irony (maybe I'm wrong.)

At least two of my county council members have blogs. There was a huge hoo-ha when Barak Obama commandeered one of his supporter's Facebook page which is... a BLOG.

It's not just that the idea of bloggers running America is NOT silly. It's that it's already been happening at the very top of the government to some degree for over three months and Graham finds it unthinkable.

I guess it's because blogging is so YESTERDAY now that the GOP is going "beyond cutting edge"? He's worried about listening to all these old-school horse-n'-buggy fogies with their web logs?

Twitterers! THAT's who you need to be listening to!

THAT"s the future of the GOP, baby!
140 characters or less!

"Tax cuts!"

See? Summarized the entire GOP agenda with 131 characters to spare!

"...Jeff is a good guy...". Pay no attention to his history. Note to Graham...quit breathing on my crouch.