Lindsey Graham Does Not Care For Stupid Constitutional Rights If Bad People Get To Have Them

Senator Lindsey Graham would appear not to be especially big on the Constitution's stupid protection of rights for criminal suspects, at least not when those suspects are Dangerous Foreigners. Even if they're Dangerous Foreigners who are naturalized US Citizens. We're pretty sure we read that Thomas Jefferson said that rights are only for good people anyway. That's on the internet somewhere.

Also, too, it's possible that, if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is taken alive, he might be subject to some tweaks to the FBI's rules for questioning terrorism suspects that were put in place after the 2009 attempt to bomb an airliner over Detroit. We won't pretend to know whether those protocols are constitutional or not, but they do seem designed to address the fear that a terrorism suspect will clam up altogether. Unfortunately, the revised interrogation rules are probably not torture-y enough.

Despite his willingness to toss out the 5th and 6th amendments of the Constitution in situations where it might be inconvenient, it is a relief to know that Sen. Graham, who knows a thing or two about the law, having been an instructor at the Air Force JAG school, loves the 2nd amendment so much that he voted against expanding background checks for firearms purchases.

[ Twitter / Salon ]