Already the denunciations of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died at 71, are piling up. Former Republican operative Steve Schmidt’s verdict was not untypical. He declared on X that Graham not only “lacked a moral core,” but also found relevance “as a cast member in the most malignant reality show ever made.”
There’s never been a bummer rap. Graham’s moral center was never in greater evidence during the Trump era. Had Graham not aligned himself with Trump, American foreign policy would look vastly different over the past several years. Rather than delivering pompous, empty speeches like former senator Jeff Flake, he made a conscious decision to influence Trump rather than flee the field of fight. And he often succeeded. As Sam Tanenhaus, the author of a valuable new biography of William F. Buckley, Jr., told me, “what many call cowardice looks like a strategic choice. If you believe in government, you do all you can to make a difference. Graham was able to remain his own man when others either caved or walked – on foreign policy most obviously, but he also gave a smart and adroit speech tearing apart the stolen-election conspiracies.”
Graham was the last of the three amigos – their ranks included John McCain and Joe Lieberman – who unabashedly championed an assertive America abroad, one that supported democracy movement, whenever and wherever it could. The three amigos were, in other words, foreign-policy hawks who believed that America should align itself with western democracies to fight the bad guys.
