by Brian Montopoli
CBS News
October 1, 2009
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham Thursday blamed the lack of civility in today’s political discourse on voters’ willingness to send confrontational representatives to Washington as well as the 24-hour news cycle, talk radio and organizations like MoveOn.org.
“Can you imagine writing the Constitution today?” Graham said during a conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg at The First Draft of History, a conference in Washington, D.C. produced by The Atlantic, the Newseum and The Aspen Institute. He speculated that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly would complain that “Ben Franklin [is] giving in on something.”
Asked what he thinks of another Fox News personality, Glenn Beck, Graham replied, “Only in America can you make that much money crying.”
He said Beck is “not aligned with any party as far as I can tell. He’s aligned with cynicism. And there’s always been a market for cynicism.”
“But we became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers,” he added.
Graham addressed a variety of topics during the discussion, including John McCain’s loss in the 2008 election. Graham, a close ally of McCain, had been a central figure in his campaign…
