Lindsay Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, co-authored an op-ed over the weekend published in the New York Times, in which he called for the passage of climate change legislation.
Graham of course is a Republican, but he defied "the Party of No" cliche, arguing sensibly that (according to the Huffington Post):
I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging
the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural
disaster in the making. Let's do something about it. I'd like to solve
a problem, and if it's on President Obama's watch, it doesn't bother me
one bit if it makes the country better off.
For this he was excoriated at a townhall meeting in Greenville, in which more than one angry white man demanded to know why he was "getting into bed with John Kerry." The rage (on YouTube) is scary, complete with insults such as "traitor" and "a Democrat in drag." Graham defended his position:
On climate change, Graham said he is working with Kerry because he
wants to expand off-shore drilling and increase nuclear power to reduce
the country's dependence on foreign oil. He said some caps on
greenhouse gases are a reasonable trade-off to get a bill through
Congress.
Craziness.
Kit Stolz 
‘Some caps on emissions’ are just the thin edge of the wedge, and they are not a good trade off. The Waxman bill is about Cap&Trade and only about Cap&&trade. All other parts of the bill are achievable, Cap&Trade is the big block. No one would disagree that we could use some legislated encouragment to invest in renewable energy, but we don’t need Cap&Trade to do this. Drop Cap&Trade from the Waxman bill and this legislation will sail through the Senate. But the Dems want cap&Trade more than anything else in the world, so this legislation will languish.
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