Sen. Graham Admits That Opposing Sotomayor Puts Party Over Country
On June 4, 2009, Roll Call reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham admitted that opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court would merely be the GOP's revenge for Judge Alito's confirmation struggle. He said, "I'm not doing the country any good looking back playing a game of tit for tat. But I'm not going to put my party at a disadvantage if this is the way the game is played."
Sen. Graham: Opposing Sotomayor Is Putting Party Over Country
Sen. Lindsey Graham Admitted Opposition To Sotomayor Is Not "Any Good" For America, But Good For The GOP. As reported in Roll Call, Sen. Lindsey Graham admitted opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court is "playing a game of tit for tat" but not doing so would put the "[Republican] party at a disadvantage." Roll Call wrote:
Obama supported an unsuccessful effort in 2006 to filibuster Alito's nomination, Graham argued, adding that it would put Republicans at a disadvantage if they did not use that same standard when deciding whether to support Sotomayor's nomination.
"I'm not doing the country any good looking back playing a game of tit for tat. But I'm not going to put my party at a disadvantage if this is the way the game is played," Graham said. [Roll Call, 6/4/09; emphasis added]
Graham: "If This Is The Way We're Playing The Game, That's What We'll Have To Do." As reported by the Wall Street Journal, "Applying the same scrutiny to Sotomayor, Graham said he could not vote for the president's nominee simply based on her life accomplishments. And he suggested that the days of nominees eliciting only a handful of no votes from the opposing party, as in the cases of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, were over. 'I'm not going to put my party at a disadvantage,' Graham said. 'If this is the way we're playing the game, that's what we'll have to do.'" [Wall Street Journal, 6/3/09; emphasis added]
