Lindsey Graham dead at 71
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Just saw this one that sums up his political career:
The Great Betrayal
There is an old saying that we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. I’ve never believed death is some sort of celestial pardon. It doesn’t erase a lifetime of decisions. It doesn’t absolve betrayal. If we celebrate people after they’re gone because they spent their lives lifting humanity, then we owe history the same honesty when someone spent their public life diminishing it. Death deserves dignity. Legacies deserve scrutiny.
Lindsey Graham died suddenly after suffering an apparent cardiac emergency at his Capitol Hill home. Emergency responders attempted to revive him before transporting him to George Washington University Hospital, where he later died. His office described it simply as a brief and sudden illness. That is where the medical story ends. The political story ended years ago.
For me, Lindsey Graham didn’t die on a Saturday night in Washington. The Lindsey Graham I once respected disappeared the day he surrendered his conscience to Donald Trump.
I remember the senator who stood beside John McCain and spoke of honor, alliances, constitutional responsibility, and moral leadership. We often disagreed politically, but I never questioned that he believed what he was saying. Somewhere along the way that man vanished. In his place emerged someone willing to explain away almost anything if it meant remaining close to power. I didn’t watch a politician evolve. I watched a man slowly negotiate away pieces of his character until there was almost nothing recognizable left.
That is the tragedy I see. Not simply that Lindsey Graham died, but that he had already abandoned the very qualities that once made him worthy of respect. He traded independence for obedience, integrity for influence, and conviction for proximity to a president he himself once warned Americans about. When I think about Lindsey Graham’s legacy, I don’t think of the man who served beside John McCain. I think of the man who chose to spend the final chapter of his career defending nearly every excess, every assault on democratic norms, every attack on truth, and every excuse offered on behalf of Donald Trump.
I have never believed democracy dies only because of men like Trump. Democracy dies because intelligent people who know better decide that preserving their own political future matters more than preserving the institutions they swore to defend. Trump didn’t create this movement alone. He required willing participants. Lindsey Graham became one of the most indispensable among them.
His transformation always struck me as one of the great political collapses of our time. This wasn’t someone who lacked the ability to distinguish right from wrong. It was someone who understood the difference perfectly and chose expediency anyway. That is why I find it difficult to summon much sympathy for his political legacy. I don’t celebrate his death. I mourn what he willingly became.
History, I believe, will remember Lindsey Graham less for the legislation he sponsored than for the example he set. Future generations will study these years and ask how so many elected officials could watch constitutional guardrails buckle without intervening. His name will almost certainly appear somewhere in that answer. Not because he was powerless, but because he possessed influence and repeatedly chose to spend it protecting power instead of principle.
The betrayal wasn’t of Democrats. It wasn’t even of Republicans. It was a betrayal of the American people. Every oath of office carries an implied promise that the Constitution comes before any individual. Lindsey Graham had countless opportunities to honor that promise. Again and again, he chose otherwise.
Some men leave behind monuments.
Some leave behind cautionary tales.
I believe Lindsey Graham leaves behind the latter.
Michael Jochum -
Meghan McCain's thoughts.
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It's interesting to read various views of Graham's life and political career.
Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic:
And an interesting interview this morning with Chris Coons. Starts at 13:39:
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I could never understand how someone with his reported ethics and values could end up aligning himself with the horror of MAGA. I just don't understand it.
Jennifer Rubin's thoughts on Graham the politician. I find it hard not to agree with her.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) passed away suddenly Saturday night from an apparent tear in his aorta. Unfortunately, Senate colleagues and most legacy media outlets are avoiding the hard reckoning he deserves. Few American politicians have been as disastrously wrong in their advocacy for regime change in the Middle East, not just once but twice, or in their indulgence in an Israeli right-wing government that took Israel (and in turn, U.S. policy) down a morally abhorrent road of domestic reprehension of Palestinians. He supported authoritarian rule in derogation of Israel’s professed democratic values and reckless violence aimed at the utterly unattainable goal of obliterating military threats to Israel’s survival at the expense of attainable diplomatic solutions.
Domestically, he played a small but critical role in trying to steal the 2020 election, assisting Donald Trump’s campaign to “find” nonexistent votes to swing Georgia’s election results. His role in demagoguing and running roughshod over now Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault victims marked a low point in Supreme Court confirmation hearings and helped steer the court toward its downward spiral into rank partisanship. More generally, his support for a corrupt, racist, conspiracy-mongering president who threatens the fiber of our democracy leaves a legacy of moral cowardice. As someone who formally supported comprehensive immigration reform, his indulgence of the rank racism and domestic campaign of terror against migrants exemplifies the rot at the core of the Republican Party.
We leave it to others to scrounge for redeeming features or accomplishments that contributed to the well-being of Americans and the advancement of our democratic values. His career should stand as a reminder that, in the end, access to power and electoral success mean little. History will judge him harshly for his role in the MAGA assault on democracy and America’s disastrous loss of international stature.
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Graham's sister likely to be named his replacement.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-replacement-senate-south-carolina-governor/
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