Do not politicize the Boston bombing -- that means You, Lindsey Graham

Start with a couple of facts:    (1)  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is up for re-election in 2014 in a very conservative southern state.    (2)  Lindsey likes to spout off on television, especially if he thinks he knows more than the president about an issue.

Graham is a lawyer who did a tour of military service as an adjuntant general -- which means he worked as a lawyer in the military.    He likes to remind people of that, which he thinks makes him an authority on such military, legal matters.

He made headlines last week by calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be held as an "enemy combatant" so he can be questioned without a lawyer to find out whether they were linked to any terrorist group and what he knows about any possible further planned attacks.

Lindsey was pretty quick to spout off about this.   Dzhokhar hadn't even been captured, much less charged with a crime, when he first talked about interrogating him "before he lawyers up."    This would be illegal, except under one circumstance -- imminent threat to the nation or being part of our declared enemy forces.   There's no evidence of that in this case.

Graham has admitted that he knows that, as a citizen, Dzhokhar cannot be tried in a military court;  but he wants to delay his being read his Miranda rights and legal representation until he has been interrogated.

In other words, he thinks this is that rare exception when a citizen should be deprived of his 6th amendment rights.   It is not.   And I believe that the president is in a better position than little Lindsey to know the latest intelligence and the latest information that the FBI has.

The fact is, there is absolutely no evidence that the brothers had any connections with Al Qaeda or the Taliban or any other organized radical or terrorist group.   "Enemy combatant" is defined in 2012 National Defense Authorization Act federal documents as "a person who was a part of or substantially supported Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners."

Committing a terrorist act on one's own makes one a criminal but not an enemy combatant.   Now that he is awake and answering questions in writing (he cannot speak because of his throat injury), Dzhakhov has said they were motivated by religion, not some outside group, and that they acted alone.    There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Lindsey is posturing, politicking, and putting himself in the spotlight.   It would be shameful to stoop to cheap politics at a time of national tragedy like this.

Ralph