RoguePlanet

This just in: Republican consultant impugns Bill Frist's honesty!!

Read Bob McAlister's comment here.

Mr. McAlister was chief of staff for former South Carolina governor, Republican Carroll Campbell.

Shorter Bob McAlister: Let's us extreme conservatives stop picking on Lindsey Graham and go back to demonizing judges!

Update: Here's an excerpt from Mr. McAlister's column which will soon be available only for pay on The State's website:

Complete disclosure here: I was a consultant to Lindsey Graham when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002. And some of his harshest critics in recent days are friends with whom I have worked as well.

Their zeal for wanting strict constructionists on the bench is on target. Thomas Jefferson warned that an unbridled judiciary would ultimately lead to a “judicial oligarchy” that would trample the Constitution and threaten liberty.

He was prophetic. Today, Congress and the president are allowed to do only that which black-robed tyrants permit. Five justices, appointed for life and accountable to no one, have the power to remake this country in their own godless image.

Which brings us back to Lindsey Graham.

The ultimate irony: By helping avert a vote on ending judicial filibusters, he may have rescued President Bush from the ultimate humiliation of losing the Senate vote on banning filibusters, dooming his chance of getting conservatives on the Supreme Court.

If Senate Republicans have to vote on the nuclear option to get the president’s Supreme Court nominees approved, the betting is that Graham will pull the trigger, and his credibility might even influence the vote that makes the difference between winning and losing.

Two eternal political truths withstood another test in last week’s chaos in the U.S. Senate.

One truth: In things political, most reality is below the surface. Lindsey Graham did his colleagues’ dirty work and never complained. Some were praised; he was criticized unfairly.