Senator Lindsey Graham

Sometimes he appears to be one of the few sane Republicans, even voting with Democrats;  or like when he actually praised President Obama recently for something.

But now when it comes to national defense and security, Sen. Lindsey Graham and his buddy Sen. John McCain, are definitely saber-rattling hawks.    And, in my opinion, Graham is not above trying to use his war-mongering for political purpose.

It's only going to get worse in the coming year, since he is running for re-election from the very conservative state of South Carolina.   He's certainly doing it now over national security.

He keeps calling for Dzhakhov Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant and questioned without legal representation, despite the fact that he has already been questioned initially under the exception that allows a citizen to be held temporarily to gather information about any knowledge he may have of a possible national emergency.    They determined that there was none.   So he was read his Miranda rights and given legal counsel.

But Senator Graham only doubled down on his mantra -- "enemy combatant,"  even after he himself has admitted that he does not meet the criteria in the War Powers Act.

Further, he's being critical of the FBI for not keeping tabs on the older brother after they interviewed him in 2011 at Russia's request.   They found nothing to link him to terrorists groups.

Hindsight is always better, of course.   Consider this:   Tamerlan's name was added to the classified government watch list in 2011.    But so were more than 500,000 other names on that list.    They cannot all be kept under close surveillance.  Judgment has to be used.  And prior to the Boston attack, they had no information that would warrant that.

The fact that now, after the fact, we see that he was increasingly becoming radacalized does not change the fact that in 2011 they had nothing to make him seem more of a risk than the other 499,999 names on that list.

So, get over yourself, Lindsey.   The people of South Carolina elected you senator.   The people of the United States elected Barack Obama to be president.

Ralph