Sen. Lindsey Graham Unironically Tells the President to Man Up:
Tooling around the internets, looking for something to pique his interest and move him past his weekend whiskey-induced torpor, the Rude Pundit came across this quote from girl senator Lindsey Graham on President Obama saying he's not going to "play that game" on raising the debt ceiling: "Yes, we will play that game, Mr. President, because it’s not a game. The game you’re playing is small ball. You’re talking about raising rates on the top 2% that would run the government for 11 days. You just got reelected. How about doing something big that is not liberal? How about doing something big that really is bipartisan? Every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. How about manning up here, Mr. President, and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming Greece?"

Two things: 1. Graham is acknowledging that Obama has a mandate to do something, which is actually quite a newsworthy statement from a Republican. 2. "Manning up"? Lindsey Graham sounds like a drag queen Loretta Lynn after sucking cock for quarters in the men's room at Club Pantheon. His calling on someone to man up is like a baboon telling someone his ass is too red.

So, apparently, for Graham, being a man means going against one's party and against what one was elected on, or, you know, being "bipartisan." Huh, the Rude Pundit pondered, wonder how many opportunities Lindsey Graham has taken to be such a man. So he clicked on over to the senator's website and elsewhere to search for manned-up manliness of that nature in the last few months.

- First off, just last week, "Graham Votes Against United Nations Disabilities Treaty" because men think that the U.N. wants to neuter their American balls.

- Graham voted to uphold a filibuster of an amendment to the 2013 Defense appropriations bill that would have repealed a reduction in the benefits for the families of deceased veterans because children of dead soldiers need to man up for the debt, too.

- And he voted to filibuster a bill establishing a National Cybersecurity Council because manly men change their passwords enough.

- Back in May, the "Statement By Senators Graham, McCain, Kyl, and Ayotte on Smith Detainee Amendment to House Defense Bill" condemned a proposal by Rep. Adam Smith that would have barred indefinite detention of suspected terrorists. Said the manly Graham, "We reject any attempts to reward foreign terrorists clever enough to get inside our borders with the same legal rights and protections as American citizens – the very people these terrorists seek to kill and injure" because manly men are total pussies about putting terrorists on trial. But, hey, he agrees with the President on that one, so maybe Obama is a man when it comes to detainees.

In conclusion, looking at Lindsey Graham's actions as the baseline for what a man should be, the only route to being a man is to be a Republican and vote like a Republican. It's that old-fashioned feminizing of liberalism. It has nothing to do with actually standing up for one's beliefs, even if they're different than yours.

In other words, forcing the rich to pay a little more in taxes is not manning up, but making middle- and working-class seniors take care of their health insurance until age 67 is.

If that's what's considered manly, the Rude Pundit would rather hang out with the bitches and punks.