Consider the evidence:
Graham has long modeled his own career in the Senate on John McCain. Graham is Maverick Junior, and has long worked to construct a reputation as someone who is bold enough to reach across the aisle. Maverick Junior stepped up and sided with McCain in 2000 against Bush in the famous South Carolina primary. It didn't work out then and it's not working out now.
Most recently, Graham has made a public show of working with Democrats on climate change and immigration. This has all been part of a political gamble, not unlike Obama's: the intention is to be perceived as someone who is bipartisan.
But suddenly, Graham has made a dramatic move to his far right, abandoning his mavericky positions.
On Tuesday, April 20, a Tea Party speaker in Greenville, South Carolina, named William Gheen, who is also head of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), commanded Graham to "come out of that log cabin closet." He said that Graham being gay was "a secret that Lindsey Graham has." Then he theorized something very old school:
"I hope this secret it isn't being used as leverage over Senator Graham, so today I think Senator Graham, you need to come forward and tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality."
The video of Gheen charging Graham with being gay and pro-immigration went up on youtube and began to go viral.
On Saturday, April 24, Graham released a letter making a peculiar, nearly incoherent claim. He said because the climate bill had been re-scheduled he was going to abandon his support of the immigration bill:
Mr. Graham said that any Senate debate on the highly charged subject of illegal immigration would make it impossible to deal with the difficult issues involved in national energy and global warming policy.
He said in his letter that energy must come first and that Democrats appeared to be rushing to take up immigration because of rising anti-immigrant sentiment, including a harsh new measure signed into law in Arizona on Friday.
"Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Mr. Graham said. "I know from my own personal experience the tremendous amounts of time, energy and effort that must be devoted to this issue to make even limited progress.
Graham never did respond to Gheen's outing of the senator as being gay, and as soon as he issued his letter, flipflopping on immigration, a search for "William Gheen" on youtube no longer listed the outing video anywhere near the top but instead promoted tiresome immigration speeches posted "2 years ago."
By accusing Graham of being gay-blackmailed by liberals, did William Gheen pull off the postmodern feat of gay-blackmailing Graham from the right?