On Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made an audience of liberals gasp when he paraphrased prominent Democrat operative James Carville, a rabid defender of alleged sexual assaulter and former President Bill Clinton, while speaking at The Atlantic Fest.
"This is what's degrading: 'This is what you get when you go through a trailer park with a hundred-dollar bill,'" said Graham, when asked about President Donald Trump's "degrading" treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
A collective gasp was heard from the audience, appalled by what Graham had just said.
And they should be appalled, since Graham was showcasing the Democrats' past treatment of female accusers by merely paraphrasing Carville slandering Clinton accuser Paula Jones in the 1990s. Jones, who said she was sexually harassed by Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas, was eventually paid off $850,000 by Clinton to drop her lawsuit.
"If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find," Carville famously stated in defense of Clinton.
Yahoo! News pounced on the remark and, by omitting key context, unfairly framed it as if Graham were saying this about Ford. After fierce backlash, the news network deleted the tweet, though it can be accessed via archive here and viewed by screenshot, below:
Other leftist media figures joined in on the false framing and feigned outrage over the comment — though, again, this was said by Team Clinton about an accuser:
Lindsey Graham on Christine Blasey Ford: "This is what happens when you go through a trailer park with a $100 bill."
And on Donald Trump viciously mocking a sexual assault victim: "Everything he said was factually true." pic.twitter.com/ZPJEDJaxjg
— John Iadarola (@johniadarola) October 3, 2018
Yahoo News inexplicably took it down - here’s Lindsey Graham. https://t.co/FyevQzIkgi
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) October 3, 2018
Heartbreaking that my first reaction was "Oh, surely he must have said that and not realized he was miked up!". Nope, Lindsey Graham said that in public, on a stage, on purpose.
— Dr. Ann Olivarius (@AnnOlivarius) October 3, 2018
Unfuckingbelievable!
Trump: Disgusting abhorrent mocking remarks of Dr. Ford at latest Hate rally.
Lindsey Graham: Hold my beer.
“Well that’s [she’s] what you get when you go through a trailer park with hundred dollar bill.” #TimesUp for all these assholes. #VoteThemAllOut pic.twitter.com/zYwVGsH69B
— Hadley Sheley (@HadleySheley) October 3, 2018
While Graham might have been engaging in what some might call "whataboutism," it's clear that the media will do anything in their power to advance a narrative which is harmful to Republicans, even if it means lying. It's also true that Democrats are finally upset about the treatment of a Clinton accuser, and it only took tricking them into thinking a Republican did it to come around!