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Lindsey Graham Is Right

Last month, Lindsey Graham urged President Obama to take the lead on immigration reform. Now, Democrats are saying they'll turn to immigration reform next, and Graham is so angry he's abandoning negotiations over climate change.

Hypocrisy? Well, sure. But it seems unfair to accuse him of having "negotiated in bad faith." Graham has been painstakingly attempting to assemble a political and business coalition for legislation to mitigate climate change. He has also been working on immigration reform, but the Democrats' weak signals of interest before last week have helped contribute to an atmosphere where nobody expected a bill to advance this year, and thus little headway has been made. There has been no House immigration bill, whereas the House has passed a climate bill already. Graham was set to unveil his bill on Monday when Harry Reid pulled the carpet out from under him by announcing that immigration would come first and climate -- which gets harder to do as the elections gets closer -- probably never.

As for bad faith, Graham is a Republican Senator from South Carolina. His highest risk of losing his seat, by far, comes from the prospect of a conservative primary challenger. Indeed, I'd say that prospect is far from remote, and Graham is displaying an unusual willingness to risk his political future. He has little incentive to negotiate on these issues except that he believes it's the right thing to do. So when Democrats put climate change on the backburner to take up immigration, and so so for obviously political reasons, Graham has every right to be angry. He's risking his political life to address a vital issue, and Harry Reid is looking to save his seat.