There's a fascinating tidbit in this excellent Dave Weigel writeup of the ridiculously dumb "ZOMG Lindsey Graham is fomenting a military coup!!1!" kerfuffle:
Three days later, the web site of libertarian pundit/reporter Ben Swann–who was in New Hampshire last weekend for the Free State Project-aligned Liberty Forum–posted "exclusive audio" of the quote. Swann is no fan of Graham's hawkish politics. His "Reality Check" segments have included looks at "rethinking 9/11," and his coverage of Graham has included exposes of drunk staffers and on-camera confrontations about his votes.
And, sure enough, Swann does think we need to just ask some questions about WTC7. (For those of you who are blissfully unaware, a large segment of the 9/11 Truth community of conspiracy theorists believe that the gubmint or a shadowy cabal therein ordered the destruction of WTC7 because it was filled with secret documents or something.) Here's Swann:
So what is Rethink 9/11? Wouldn’t only a fringe group of people would still question 9/11? Perhaps not, because today we will tell you about new polling that shows a majority of those polled either question the official 9/11 story or don’t believe it at all. Is that possible?
The first step toward truth, is to be informed.
Here in New York City, today at the site of the 9/11 Memorial, promises to never forget what happened the morning of September 11th, 2001. But never forgetting doesn’t mean that you don’t rethink what you have been told.
It goes on like that for a while.
Like most conspiracy theorists, Swann has more than one pet cause. He's also in favor of questioning the official narrative about ... the Aurora shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting.
Oh my. I guess it makes a bit more sense that Swann didn't pick up on the humor in Graham's (admittedly quite dry) joke.
Anyway, I think Graham will manage to survive this scandal, calls for his resignation from the libertarian right notwithstanding. Indeed, I think this "scandal" is probably the best thing that could've happened to him this week. After all, here we are talking about this joke instead of the ties one of his advisers has to a neoconfederate magazine. I bet he'll take that tradeoff any day of the week.