We haven’t heard much from Lindsey Graham 2.0 in a while. The South Carolina senator reverted to praising Joe Biden over the past year and rubber stamping Democrat nominations. Graham also got completely duped during last year’s fight over the now-passed infrastructure bill, throwing his support behind the president despite being lied to.
But while Graham’s spine is made of jello on most issues, there’s something about Supreme Court battles that gets his juices flowing. Perhaps it’s the extremely establishment nature of such battles? We saw him react with Kavanaugh with Amy Coney Barrett and with Ketanji Jackson.
During the Democrat Supreme Court nominee’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Graham managed a very clever and extremely triggering bit of questioning.
“What faith are you, by the way?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham questioned Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on her religion today in an effort to rehash what he said was the “offensive” treatment of Amy Coney Barrett in past confirmation hearings.https://t.co/9OoNKo3GkJ pic.twitter.com/ck9MnlL4bG
— POLITICO (@politico) March 22, 2022
Graham’s line of questioning elicited immediate outrage. How dare he ask a Supreme Court nominee about their religious background? That’s unheard of and completely out of line!
“What faith are you?” is Graham’s 1st question in a government that has no religious test for office.
— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) March 22, 2022
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) begins his questioning with “What faith do you have, Lord?
Then, this: “Can you fairly judge a Catholic?”
Then, this: “How important is your faith to you?”
Judge Jackson says: “There’s no religious test under the Constitution.” pic.twitter.com/6SPRZZvoGe
— The Recount (@therecount) March 22, 2022
Except that’s exactly what Democrats did regarding Amy Coney Barrett, and Graham made it clear that he was basing his questioning on that. Is KBJ’s religion actually relevant? Likely not (well, to me it is, but I mean governmentally), but neither was ACB’s. Yet, mainstream media outlets and Democrats slammed her for being religiously observant. Graham was able to get Democrats to reconsider the standards they previously established.
Another interesting part of the exchange was another. KBJ’s answer to the question of what her faith is was “non-denominational Christian.” Personally, I’ve got zero issues with that because I’m a non-denominational Christian, but it is worth noting that such a descriptor typically denotes a historically Pentecostal background. Given this, is the media likely to make KBJ a religious extremeist when they report on her? ACB is a Catholic from Catholic origins but belongs to a subsect which also believes in Pentecostal elements. For it, she was called crazy and a scoundrel. KBJ ought to get the same treatment.
Of course, she won’t get the same treatment because the “concerns” over any nominee’s religious views come down to one thing: Keeping the killing of babies in the womb legal. KBJ has the “right” (see: far-left) opinion of Roe v. Wade, so nothing about her religion is relevant according to the left. But if a Republican nominee goes to church and thinks it’s wrong to scramble kids pre-birth, suddenly, religious beliefs are ripe for scrutiny. This is how it works.
Returning to Graham, despite his laudable performance here, he’s still what he’s always been. He’s going to do just enough to not have himself cast into the outer darkness, politically speaking. But when push comes to shove, he’s still the same Democrat-friendly, GOP squish he was during the Bush years. So while it’s nice to see Lindsey Graham 2.0 rise from the ashes, don’t expect it to become a trend. In fact, I’d guess he ends up voting to confirm KBJ. We’ll see, I guess.
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