Lindsey Graham - Wingman or Wing-nut?

AROUND THE BLOCK

I learned today…

I learned today that South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham has been misrepresenting his relationship with late Senator John McCain. Graham called himself “the Great Man’s mascot, his funny little buddy — his “wingman.”

Based on his recent behavior, Graham is clearly not a “wingman;” he’s actually a “wing-nut,” or simply “nut” for short. (Sorry, no short jokes when we’re talking about Lindsey Graham).

While there are dozens of reasons why Graham has earned the wing-nut sobriquet (including his angrily explosive defense of then Supreme Court nominee Brett Cavanaugh and today’s disclosure of his expletive-laced confrontation with acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan), clearly the most telling reason is his evolving relationship with Donald Trump.

 So, what is the evidence that has turned Graham from a “wingman” to a “wing-nut?” Let's take a look at the “old Lindsey” vs. the “new Lindsey."

Old Lindsey          

• “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell,” Graham said on CNN in December 2015.
• “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office,” Graham said. “I’m a Republican, and he’s not. He’s not a conservative Republican, he’s an opportunist. He’s not fit to be president of the United States,” he told CNN in February 2016.
• “It’s like [choosing between] being shot or poisoned” (talking about voting for Trump or Ted Cruz on February 21, 2016).
• “Embracing Donald Trump is embracing demographic death” (commenting on Trump's unpopularity among Hispanic American voters on May 6, 2016).
• In voting for independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin for president in 2016, Graham said, “As a party, we are better to risk losing without Donald Trump than trying to win with him. Enough already with Mister Trump.”
• "If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay.”

 New Lindsey

• “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook not fit to be president,” Graham told CNN on November 30, invoking his own words from 2016.
• Two years after calling Trump’s policy proposals “bad for the country,” Graham suggested that Trump should “win the Nobel Prize for his efforts on the Korean Peninsula.” (Pretty popular, this Nobel thing).
• Minutes after Jeff Sessions was fired, not only did no one pay "holy hell," Graham told the press, “I look forward to working with President Donald Trump to find a confirmable, worthy successor [to Sessions] so that we can start a new chapter at the Department of Justice and deal with both the opportunities and challenges our nation faces.”
• Following Trump’s Oval Office address on security, Graham said, ‘This is the most presidential I have seen President Trump. It was compelling and everything he said was true.” This despite most fact-checkers finding 4-8 false or misleading statements in the 9-minute speech.
• Graham has claimed, the investigation of the Trump campaign was “biased,” the FISA process “needs to be looked at” and there may be a “deep state” working against the president, He also said, “It’s long past time for a Special Counsel to investigate the Clinton email scandal, Uranium One, role of Fusion GPS, and FBI and DOJ bias during 2016 campaign,” all statements that virtually mirror Trump’s positions on these issues.
• Regarding Trump’s sexual scandals and payoffs to cover them up, Graham admitted that he “didn't think President Donald Trump was always telling the truth, but that, ultimately, it didn't bother him too much, particularly regarding sex because he thought, "most people" would.
• And, Graham’s point of view on the controversy over building the wall on the southern border (in contrast to many of his GOP colleagues): "It is time for President Trump to use emergency powers to fund the construction of a border wall/barrier." 

So, is Graham, the self-described “wingman” to “maverick” John McCain, or the nutty “wing-nut?”

What do the pundits say?

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: “What did they do with Graham, one might reasonably ask? If you posed this question to random people on Capitol Hill, you might hear them say, Aw, that’s just Lindsey. He’s in cycle. If this sounds vaguely endocrinal, well, suit yourself. What it means, of course, is that Graham is up for reelection in 2020. When you’re in one of the redder states in the union, you’d best cheer for the Man from MAGA or risk fading into local history.

Dana Milbank, also of the Post: on Graham's rationale for courting Trump: “To be relevant…[but] it seems more likely Graham’s friendship with Trump has to do with Graham’s reelection in 2020.” Milbank, quoting Graham about his relationship with McCain, “I mean all of the big stuff, campaign finance, climate change, Iraq, you name it. I was by John’s side. I was his wingman,” concludes that Graham is still a wingman “but now he’s serving in that role as wingman to a president who takes the opposite view on each of those issues.”

Maybe Parker and Milbank are correct – Graham is acting this way because he’s up for reelection and is simply protecting his position in a Trump-loving state. Perhaps. But I to me he’s a nut…and a disingenuous, spineless one at that.