Last week, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham suggested that the United States should boycott the 2014 Olympics if Russia grants asylum to Edward Snowden.
Not long after those words hit the Internet, Graham was attacked by both the left and the right for being, well, kind of an idiot. In fact, Fox News anchor Alisyn Camerota asked the Senator about this in the following interview:
LG: “You don’t want to punish athletes – they’ve done nothing wrong – but do I really want to reward Putin if he continues to do what he’s doing? Should we reward this country by allowing him to have the propaganda coup of hosting the Olympics?”
AC: “How does that hurt Putin?”
LG: “I think it would really matter to the Russians. Should we have given Hitler the Olympics in 1936? I’m not suggesting Russia is Nazi Germany. Alisyn, would you go to the Olympic games in Iran? Look what Hitler did in 1936. They sold to the world something they were not. Like it or not, the Olympic Games are used by the host country to sell themselves. Should we be part of selling Russia for Putin? If he gives Snowden asylum, should we give our Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on the games that he will be hosting? I don’t want to stop the Olympics, I want to stop Putin.”
Clearly Graham has not received the memo that honey badger Putin doesn’t give a shit.
Of course, it seems Graham’s too busy these days preparing for his next election by pumping out the empty rhetoric for which so man Senators just like him are so famous. Case in point, yesterday the Senator told an audience of partisan sheep that if the relationship between the U.S. and Iran doesn’t improve by the end of summer, he will ask Congress to authorize going to war.
Now, he knows that’ll never happen, but it makes for a great opportunity to fire up his supporters who haven’t yet figured out that starting yet another war is not in our best interests. That being said, if Graham is serious about going to war with Iran, I suggest he volunteer right now to go over there and fire the first shot – in person, and not from the safety of a climate-controlled drone command center.
I tell ya, I think this guy needs to be picked up on a 5150 (involuntary psychiatric hold) before he does any real damage.
