As Matt Corley and Igor Volsky of thinkprogress.org have shown, Graham's claim that Republicans never used reconciliation without getting at least twelve Democratic votes is a complete and total lie.
On three separate occasions during the Bush years, Republicans used reconciliation to push through legislation with virtually no Democratic support. Nobody raised a peep when Republicans used reconciliation, but now that Democrats -- who have a far larger majority than Republicans ever did -- are likely to follow the same path, GOPers like Graham are rewriting history to portray this business-as-usual procedure as if it were some sort of plot to hand America over to the Soviet Union.
Graham also claimed that he would help Democrats pass a smaller bill if they would just give up reconciliation...conveniently forgetting, as Evan Bayh pointed out to him, that the reconciliation bill will actually be a relatively small bill. Remember, health care reform has already passed the Senate. Reconciliation is just about fixing the bill up so that the House can support it.
The reconciliation package will consist of modest, common-sense language getting rid of things like the 'Cornhusker Kickback' from the Senate bill. Just about everything in there won't be controversial. There will be almost nothing that Republicans will actually oppose. In fact, they'll probably support almost all of it. But they will still vote against it, and, like Graham, declare reconciliation is a "catastrophe" for the United States Senate.
Well, if this kind of legislation is what qualifies as a "catastrophe," perhaps we need a few more of them. Because most reasonable people would look at this reconciliation package and say "Yeah, it makes sense to get rid of the Cornhusker Kickback. Even if I don't support the bill, I at least support getting rid of that. So let's junk it." But Republicans will be sitting there, saying no, even though they'll be feeling yes. Because that's what they do. And this bill is Waterloo. Only question is: whose?