THE PROBLEM WITH ELITISM

Remember back in March when John McCain and Lindsey Graham crapped all over Rand Paul's epic 13-hour filibuster against John Brennan's confirmation as CIA director?  McCain called Rand and those who stood with him "wacko birds."  Graham actually switched from opposing Brennan to voting for him, admittedly to spite Rand Paul.

"I was going to vote against him until the filibuster, so he picked up one vote," Graham said, laughing to reporters in the Capitol.

"I thought Brennan was arrogant, a bit shifty," he said, but added that he was going to vote for Brennan because the vote had become a "referendum on the drone program."

So it comes as no big surprise to read this from Politico:

Yet during one of Obama's toughest times as president, there was McCain, sitting down last week with him in the Oval Office for a private strategy session. At the urging of new White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, who has sought better ties with Republicans, Obama has had more substantive discussions with McCain in the past five months than he did in his first four years in office, according to associates of both men. Suddenly, the two are working together on issues ranging from immigration to the deficit.

"I'm getting nervous," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend in the Senate. "I told Denis McDonough, 'I don't know what you've done: You've hijacked him.'"

"Ever since the election, we've had conversations and phone calls," McCain told POLITICO in an interview. "And I think we share many agenda items that we can work on together, ranging from immigration reform, the prison in Guantánamo, to working perhaps on a grand bargain, security of our embassies and consulates. There are a bunch of issues that we share."

Last month, McCain was one of just four Republicans to vote for the failed bill to expand gun background checks, a centerpiece of Obama's agenda. McCain is a chief architect of the Senate immigration bill supported strongly by the White House. He's expressed deep reservations about GOP threats to filibuster Obama’s Cabinet-level nominees. He's slammed his fellow Republican senators for blocking Senate Democratic efforts to begin bicameral budget negotiations with the House. And he’s even suggested new tax revenues could be part of a grand bargain.

Lindsey Graham isn't getting nervous...he's getting jealous.

Click here to read Michael Walsh's comprehensive demolition of Maverick's legacy.  Awesome.