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Following months on end of watching the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham and his BFF Sen. John McCain do their best to beat the war drums for the United States to be injecting ourselves into Syria's two year long civil war, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart took the lot of them to task for their push to intervene in that country with very little thought involved as to what happens next if we would decide to go in there.

Jon Stewart: Republicans think ‘freedom magic’ is key to U.S. adventure in Syria:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has insisted the United States needs to intervene because the country had never sat back and allowed innocent civilians to be killed by dictatorial regimes.

“Thank you,” Stewart said sarcastically. “Well, obviously except for, you know, Rwanda, and Darfur, and Bosnia, and Cambodia — point taken. We as America have never let something like that happen before — in Syria with this particular Assad.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-KY) has called on the United States to provide arms to the Syrian rebels. But he warned the United States should only arm the “right” rebels and not extremists.

“Maybe we can do background checks,” Stewart joked, poking fun at the senator’s stubborn opposition to the gun law.

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With the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue of gay marriage this week and such sorry pronouncements like the one we heard from Justice Samuel Alito where he called the issue "newer than cell phones or the Internet," The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took his viewers though some of the "evolving" views we've seen from our politicians over the recent weeks.

Sen. Rob Portman has finally decided to make his support for gay marriage known now that his son has come out, along with an ever increasing number of Democratic Senators whose views have 'evolved" on the matter as well, but we've still got the likes of Senators Saxby Chambliss, Marco Rubio and Fox's great hype hope for the Republican party, Dr. Ben Carson to contend with among others.

Stewart was especially harsh in his response to Carson, who said this to Sean Hannity on Fox this week:

CARSON: Marriage is between a man and a woman. [...] No group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in beastiality, it doesn't matter what they are...

STEWART: Yeah, let me just stop you right there. It's not, you know, whether you're having sex with another consenting adult, or a horse, or a doughnut, it's all the same. Actually, that's not fair. As Dr. Carson explained, his problem isn't with gays.

CARSON: It’s not something that’s against gays. It’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of the pillars of society.

STEWART: Oh. You think we shouldn't mess with anything that's considered a fundamental pillar of society. Ideal for an editorial cartoon. Alright, here we go.... slavery, segregation and Jim Crow.

I'd say Carson just threw whatever political aspirations he might have had on a national level down the toilet with that interview if they weren't there already.

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Now that Saxby Chambliss has decided he doesn't want to have to face a primary race for his Senate seat, Rachel Maddow took her viewers through the list of potential replacements that would like to succeed him, and it's a doozy.

Georgia's Saxby Chambliss to retire:

Just a few months ago, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a two-term Republican incumbent from Georgia, started facing credible primary threats in advance of his 2014 re-election bid. In a bit of a surprise, the senator has said there won't be a re-election campaign -- Chambliss is retiring at the end of his term (via James Carter). [...]

The news was not widely expected, and Chambliss was expected to win re-election if he sought another term.

What's especially interesting now, however, is the field of Republican candidates who may try to succeed Chambliss in 2014. One of the leading GOP officials to watch is Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who said just this week that was considering taking on Chambliss in a primary, and with the incumbent stepping down, the congressman is that much more likely to run himself.

That would set up quite a campaign -- Broun is one of Congress' more ridiculous members, and a Senate campaign would create an Akin-in-Missouri situation in which a candidate may simply be too nutty to compete on a statewide level, even in the South. In this case, Broun is perhaps best known for arguing that that cosmology, biology, and geology are, quite literally, "lies straight from the pit of Hell," and that President Obama only believes in supporting "the Soviet constitution."

In other words, even among loony extremists, Broun is almost a caricature of himself.

This matters because Georgia could prove to be far more interesting than expected. In 2008, when Chambliss sought a second term, he won by a narrow margin after being forced into a runoff when he won 49% of the vote on Election Day. Since then, Georgia's population has only grown more diverse.

If a strong Democratic candidate faced off against a ridiculous right-wing extremist, could this become a blue-to-red pick-up opportunity? Quite possibly, yes.

We've got more on Broun here: Is Paul Broun the dumbest member of Congress? Signs point to Yes and here: Rep. Paul Broun: Evolution, Embryology, and the Big Bang Theory are 'Lies Straight from the Pit of Hell'.

And as Rachel mentioned, another potential candidate is Karen Handel whose anti-abortion views are so extreme they just about took down a cancer charity: Former Susan G. Koman Exec May Run For Senate In Georgia.

And then there's Todd Akin's buddy Phil Gingrey: Republican Congressman Backs Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Comments: ‘He’s Partly Right’.

Steve Benen's article also mentioned Herman Cain, but Rachel informed her viewers that alas, Cain has said he's not running.

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When you hear diehard conservatives like Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss talk about raising taxes on the wealthy you know things are getting interesting in Washington. The so-called "fiscal cliff" gives Republicans a golden opportunity to strike a deal which will also include cutting entitlements. The smarter among them realize this and are making their moves. Now, no one has ever accused Saxby Chamblliss of being all that smart but he is at least shrewd enough to figure this out, despite the threat of later being primaried by someone like Karen Handel, disgraced former vp at the Susan G. Komen foundation and a former Georgia Sec of State.

Via WMAZ, in Macon, GA.

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said solving the nation's fiscal woes may mean breaking the anti-tax pledge he signed years ago.

Chambliss signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, penned by conservative activist Grover Norquist.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss says. "If we do it his way then we'll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that." [...]

Now Chambliss says he wants to do what it takes to right the U.S. fiscal ship, even if that means findings ways to raise revenue, which Norquist strongly opposes.

Does Chambliss think Norquist will hold the anti-tax pledge against him during his next re-election bid in 2014? Yes.

"But I don't worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist," Chambliss says.

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Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is known for backing Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on hawkish national security policies but on Sunday said that "my two amigos" were wrong to call for a Watergate-style investigation into September attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi.

During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Lieberman and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) if they agreed with the demand that Congress create a joint select committee like those used to investigate Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair.

"The committees within the United States Senate are very capable of investigating this in the right way, and this is one time I have a slight disagreement with my good friends," Chambliss explained.

"Yeah, I respectfully separate myself from my two amigos on this and agree with Saxby," Lieberman agreed. "This was a tragedy but it doesn't rise to the level of 9/11 in [2001]. Our committees can handle this and come up with answers."

"If for some reason our colleagues think when we're done that we haven't done a good enough job, well let them think about a special committee then."

(h/t: Politico)

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The media is now in a full court press to get the super committee and the Congress to along with austerity measures in the name of reducing the debt and deficit "for the grandchildren." CNN's John King, Republican Saxby Chambliss and Blue Dog corporate Democrat Heath Schuler participate in a little exercise that Chris Hayes described perfectly in the video below.

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Stephen Colbert supplies the answer. Meet your new RNC Chairman. The Michael Steele era is over.

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Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) gave the Republican response to the Predident's weekly address and Steve Benen summed this up nicely, so I'm going to let him take it from here.

This week offered new evidence that our fragile economic recovery is on very shaky ground. The monthly job totals from June were deeply disappointing. The real estate market continues to struggle badly. Reports on construction spending and manufacturing activity both disappointed. [...]

But that's why Chambliss' GOP response is so striking. His articulation of the Republican message of the week sent an unmistakable signal about exactly what the minority party considers important right now. [...]

So, literally just one day after the release of the worst monthly jobs report since October, and with a genuine employment crisis undermining the economy, the official Republican message of the week is to talk about the debt -- a debt, by the way, that grew by $5 trillion during the Bush/Cheney era because of breathtaking Republican recklessness.

How many times did Chambliss mention the word "jobs"? Literally none. How many references were there to "unemployment"? Zero. What did Chambliss offer in terms of ideas to improve the economy? There weren't any -- he didn't talk about growing the economy at all.

The most important issue on the minds of Americans went completely ignored, because the GOP has decided a different issue matters more than the economy.

Steve wrapped it up by noting that the Republicans have no intention of even trying to create jobs and he's right. The fact that they want this economy destroyed for political gain has been painfully obvious to anyone paying attention for a long time now.

For more on Steve's point about Republican recklessness causing our current deficit, he also had a link to this chart in his mini-report for this morning that's well worth sharing. "Reminder, The Deficit You're Freaking Out About Is Bush's Fault." Just because the right doesn't want to hear it doesn't mean it's wrong. More on that here as well. Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers Here's the chart from the article.

Transcript of Chambliss' remarks below the fold.

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Mitch McConnell and Saxby Chambliss were both reading from the same script when asked about Arizona's new "show me your papers" immigration law. Mitch McConnell claimed he "hadn't studied it" and Saxby Chambliss called it a state's rights issue. Both of them claimed that the Congress just can't deal with immigration reform because there are too many other things they need to get done. Yeah, so few days, so many more bills and nominations to obstruct.

WALLACE: Let's start with the tough immigration law that the Republican governor of Arizona signed on Friday, which requires police officers to check the status of anyone that they reasonably suspect could be an illegal immigrant. Do you support the law? Do you think it's constitutional? What about the claim it will lead to racial profiling?

MCCONNELL: Well, I think the real question is whether we're going to take up immigration here in Washington. And there are two things missing that were there in '07. In '07, we had a rather low unemployment rate, and we had a president really committed to taking up the issue. Two of the cabinet secretaries were up during the debate for six weeks.

So I think the question for us is, are we going to go forward up here? And it strikes me that with all the border security problems we have down there, they're actually worse than they were three years ago, and with 10 percent unemployment, it's not a great time to take this issue up in Washington.

WALLACE: Are you prepared to comment on the Arizona bill?

MCCONNELL: I haven't studied it. I know it's quite controversial. But studying a state law is not something I normally do. And I just haven't looked at it in detail yet.

WALLACE: Don't Republicans -- and some would say that this is the whole point of this new Democratic zeal in Congress for pushing immigration reform -- don't Republicans run the risk of alienating a large and growing block of voters, Hispanics?

MCCONNELL: Look, I think it's an important issue. We do -- we have an enormous number of people who are in this country illegally. The important question, what to do with them? Guest worker issue. But of course, now we have a very high unemployment rate. I just don't think this is the right time to take up this issue with the border security problems, the drug wars going on across the border, 10 percent unemployment. It just strikes me that our time would be better spent at the federal level on other issues.

Saxby Chambliss' response below the fold.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham believes the US should shoulder the responsibility of attacking Iran if an attack is necessary. An attack by the US is preferable to an an attack by Israel, according to Graham.

"I think an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare for the world, because it will rally the Arab world around Iran and they're not aligned now. It's too much pressure to put on Israel," Graham told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

He continued, "Military action should be the last resort anyone looks at, and I would rather our allies and us take military action if it's necessary."

But Graham doesn't think an attack should be limited to airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we use military action against Iran, we should not only go after their nuclear facilities. We should destroy their ability to make conventional war. They should have no planes that can fly and no ships that can float," said Graham.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss agrees. "The problem with military action also is that you're probably not going to be able to stop the production of uranium by just a simple airstrike. Lindsey's right. It's an all or nothing deal. And is it worth that at this point in time when we know they have the capability. We can slow them down, but a full-out military strike is what it would take," said Chambliss.

John Amato:

These warmongers are in their element in this clip. It's bad enough that members of Congress are talking about attacking Iran on national TV. Have they ever seen a country they wouldn't like to blow up? Not only do they want to strike the possible nuke sites, but want to engage in all out warfare regardless of how many civilians were to be killed. They forget to mention how the Arab world would feel about us if we were to strike Iran too. Do they think they would be putting America at risk for their Iran war fantasies? And do they honestly believe American would side with these Neocon war hawks that would actually put us in a third front?