Some Brief Thoughts On The Passing Of Lindsey Graham.

I just got home from Missouri, where I spent the weekend at an airshow. When I woke up in my Super 8 Motel room (another story for another day) I saw the news that Lindsey Graham had died. I put out a short statement, and I did it knowing exactly what would happen next.

We live in a strange moment where saying something nice about a political figure gets you attacked, and saying something critical gets you attacked too — even in death, even when the man hasn’t been in the ground a day. I miss the days when we could just stop, for a moment, and acknowledge somebody’s humanity before we went back to arguing about everything else. Allow me to expand on my statement, I want to do that particularly for you, who has chosen to subscribe to this substack and follow my thoughts whether you agree or disagree. And I appreciate you.

I’ve been torn about my memories of Lindsey Graham, and I’ll be honest about that instead of pretending otherwise. His turn toward Trump was among the most disappointing, and honestly angering, things I witnessed from anyone I knew in that world. I watched someone I respected reshape himself, piece by piece, into something I didn’t recognize. I won’t pretend that didn’t happen. I won’t rewrite it now just because he’s gone.

But death has a way of putting things in perspective, and I think it’s worth telling the fuller story.

Lindsey and I had a complicated relationship. Before Trump, we were friends. Real friends, not the kind politicians perform for cameras. We traveled together on congressional trips around the world — the kind of trips most people never see, where you’re not doing it for votes back home because nobody’s watching. One of those trips took us to Syrian refugee camps, where we sat with children whose entire lives had been shattered by a war they had no part in starting. I remember watching Lindsey with those kids. He wasn’t performing. He was affected by it, the same way I was. Those are the moments that remind you why you got into public service in the first place — not the floor speeches, not the fundraisers, but sitting with people who have lost everything and letting it change you a little.

That was the Lindsey Graham I knew….then. A guy who believed, genuinely, that America had a role to play in the world beyond our own borders, and who was willing to go look at suffering up close instead of just reading briefings about it. We didn’t always agree, even then. But I never doubted that part of him.

But, he was a political survivor. Sadly. That would ruin his legacy.

After Trump, we went in very different directions. I won’t relitigate all of it here — anyone who’s followed my career knows where I ended up and why. Lindsey went the opposite way, and it wasn’t subtle. We eventually stopped speaking altogether. I never hid my disagreements with him, publicly or privately, and I’m not going to sanitize that history today just because he’s gone. That wouldn’t be honest, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

But I also don’t think a person’s worst chapter has to be the only chapter you remember, especially not the day they die. So today, I choose to remember the man I knew before our paths diverged. The one who got on a plane to go look suffering in the eye instead of tweeting about it from Washington. The one who cared, actually cared, about what America’s role in the world should be. That guy was real. Trump didn’t erase him, even if he buried him for a long stretch of years.

I know some people will read this and think I’m letting him off easy. Others will think I’m still being too hard on him. Both reactions kind of prove my point — we’ve lost the ability to hold two true things at once. A man can disappoint you badly and still have been your friend once. A man can go somewhere you couldn’t follow and still have shown you something real about decency earlier in his life. Neither fact cancels the other out.

Rest in peace, Lindsey. My prayers are with his family and everyone who loved him. I hope, wherever he is now, he’s back with the guy I first got on a plane with — not the one who left.