Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) got a thorough roasting by The Bulwark on Friday, in reaction to her first few weeks in office — and her seeming lack of preparedness for the basic functions of the job.
The clearest example of this was when she admitted during a Senate debate that she doesn't know anything about Taiwan's conflict with China and the U.S. position on the issue.
"Darline Graham’s Taiwan gaffe couldn’t have come at a worse time," wrote Andrew Egger. She had hoped the debate would give her the upper hand on her primary opponent, Rep. Ralph Norman. But "instead, she tripped headfirst over a question about America’s posture toward Taiwan and the South China Sea, managing only to say that foreign policy isn’t her area of expertise and she supports the military."
This also comes at a particularly bad time for U.S. foreign policy in Asia generally, he pointed out, because "President Donald Trump took a sledgehammer to our Pacific China posture in one of his most insane statements in recent memory" and pulled back from military exercises with South Korea, in penalty for them "not sufficiently respecting his bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and ... not join[ing] his war with Iran."
Darline Graham, for her part, is betting "that GOP voters don’t care about any of this" and instead will be content with her "chasing a bunch of right-wing culture-war shibboleths: beating their heads against the wall of the DOA Save America Act, rabble-rousing about the elevenish male trans athletes a year who want to play in girls’ and women’s athletics," wrote Egger.
The bottom line, he wrote, is that "the Serious Men of the Senate flatter themselves that their job is more serious and important than this. But I suspect Darline might know what time it is better than they do."