Lindsey wearing thin.

Byron York (subscription only) reports that Lindsey Graham is driving conservative activists in South Carolina away.

I think he has the John McCain disease.

At the peak of the detainee standoff, the state GOP headquarters in Columbia received between 150 and 200 e-mails — quite a large number — blasting Graham, and also McCain. State officials hadn’t received so many angry messages since conservative activists accused the Senate leadership of backing down on the “nuclear option” in the standoff over the president’s judicial nominees. People say they’ve gotten tired of what one of Graham’s colleagues in Washington called “The John and Lindsey Show.”

Like McCain he's so anxious to appear fair and reasonable that he acts like a prima donna, always having to be coaxed to support his party. That would be fine, if he kept his negotiations private. But he doesn't.

I suppose he's just a PR hog or hoping to become a national player, but I've lost a lot of my respect for him, especially when he opposed giving cover to our interrogators on the basis that our troops might be mistreated.

The Geneva Conventions only work because we are a superpower. People who fear being tried as warcriminals after they lose the war follow the rules. Until that looks like a real possibility, our enemies aren't phased by international law.