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Graham has kissed butts for any possible political opportunity his entire career.
“I think the Lindsey Graham we’re seeing today is the real Lindsey Graham,” Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) said. “This is a political opportunist who will flop with the winds and do whatever it takes to serve his own self-interest. That’s who he is.”
When Mark Leibovich asked him what had happened to him, Graham explained:
“Well, OK, from my point of view, if you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this,” he said.
I asked what “this” was.
“ ‘This,’ ” Graham said, “is to try to be relevant.” Politics, he explained, was the art of what works and what brings desired outcomes. “I’ve got an opportunity up here working with the president to get some really good outcomes for the country,” he told me.
George Will
When in 1994, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, first ran for Congress, he promised to be “one less vote for an agenda that makes you want to throw up.” A quarter of a century later, Graham himself is a gastrointestinal challenge. In the last three years he had a road-to-Damascus conversion.
In 2015, he said Donald Trump is a “jackass.” In February 2016, he said: “I’m not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump, because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of space there. I think he’s a kook, I think he’s crazy, I think he’s unfit for office.” And: “I’m a Republican and he’s not. He’s not a conservative Republican. He’s an opportunist.” Today, Graham, paladin of conservatism and scourge of opportunism, says building the border wall is an existential matter for the GOP: “If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party.” Well.
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