Lindsey Graham: Politics more important than progress

Richard Burr's whining twin to the south, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), didn't mince words this week when he said Republicans would be doing what they do best on climate change legislation: obstructing and stalling.

With a united Democratic Caucus, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was able to get to cloture on health care without a single GOP vote. But Democrats aren’t united on climate change, and the bitter battle over health care has left even sympathetic Republicans with little desire to help — a dynamic that would likely doom the bill to legislative failure.

“It makes it hard to do anything because of the way this was handled,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Graham didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to — the fierce partisan fights during the past few weeks have torn away at the Senate’s clubby decorum, raising temperatures, fraying nerves and creating what one Democratic senator has called a “very high” level of distrust among members.

The end of clubby decorum? Well it's about time. Especially when the result of that decorum has been nothing but one sad compromise after another. And now it's out in the open.

Perhaps Burr will put it more succinctly: "We'd rather screw the environment than help Democrats succeed in doing something important."