Lindsey Graham on a Hot Tin Roof

For years I’ve heard that Lindsey Graham was John McCain’s “best friend” in the Senate. Does it mean anything that Miz Lindsey wasn’t invited to be a speaker at the funeral? He did give a Gospel reading, so maybe I’m reading too much into that. But don’t miss Dana Milbank’s “Rest in peace, Lindsey Graham.”

Graham remains alive and well, but after serving for two decades as Robin to McCain’s Batman, Graham buried whatever remained of his own reputation for iconoclasm even before his partner’s funeral.

On Tuesday, Graham took a seat on the couch of “Fox & Friends,” President Trump’s favorite show, and sealed his transition from apostate to Trump apparatchik.

“Word of caution to the public,” he said. “A lot of people try to convict President Trump. Don’t be so fast. I have seen no evidence of collusion after two years.” Having echoed Trump’s no-collusion line (as if that were the lone issue), Graham, a former military lawyer, picked up Trump’s attack on the justice system: “Plenty of corruption at the Department of Justice and the FBI. Should be stunning. Not one Democrat seems to care.”

Graham also has withdrawn support from Jeff Sessions. Graham isn’t as crazy/stupid as a lot of other wingnuts; he’s more calculating than crazy. Apparently he’s adopted Trump as his new “batman,” looking ahead to his senate re-election campaign in 2020. But if Trump goes down, Graham might also.

Well, as Brick said in the Tennessee Williams play about the cat and the roof, “Mendacity is a system that we live in.” That could be Lindsey Graham’s motto. He should have it needlepointed on some throw pillows.

In other news, the Kansas Supreme Court has created a wrinkle in Kris Kobach’s gubernatorial bid.

A grand jury must be convened to investigate whether Republican gubernatorial candidate and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach intentionally failed to register voters in 2016, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled.

The court’s one-page opinion offered no explanation behind the ruling, which addressed Kobach’s appeal of a lower court’s order to summon the grand jury, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.

The high court’s ruling, released Friday, stemmed from a petition first filed in 2016 by Steven Davis, a Lawrence resident who accused Kobach of intentionally choosing not to process online voter registrations and preventing qualified residents from voting in the 2016 election.

Kobach really does have a bug up his butt about blocking the Wrong Sort of Person (Democrats? Nonwhites? Anyone under the age of 40?) from voting.

Following up on the last post about the NAFTA mis-negogiations, the Toronto Star reporter, Daniel Dale, is saying that he did not get the quotes of Trump talking smack about Canada from the Bloomberg reporters. But that means the leak came from someone else in the room.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted:

… which comes under the heading of “Evidence That Trump Is Even Dumber Than He Seems.” What did he possibly think he could accomplish by insulting Canada?

Update: Here’s one more — Paul Manafort’s daughter has filed to officially change her name. That’s cold.