OPINION:
When Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, died on Saturday, America lost a leader, Israel lost a friend and the free world lost a champion.
The tributes pouring in from heads of state — including the leaders of Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan — speak volumes about Mr. Graham’s impact on foreign affairs. Wherever the West was in danger, Lindsey Graham was there.
His was a life of service.
The senator was active in the United States Air Force from 1982 to 1988. He later served in the South Carolina Air National Guard and the United States Air Force Reserve, retiring as a colonel in 2015.
Mr. Graham served one term in the South Carolina House of Representatives before winning election in 1994 to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until his election to the Senate in 2002. As a member of the House, he was one of the managers for the impeachment trial of President Clinton in 1999.
Mr. Graham was a tireless advocate for national security. He worked to strengthen NATO and fight Russian aggression in Ukraine.
He died shortly after returning from his latest trip to Kyiv.
He favored regime change in Iran.
In the face of growing animosity among his Democratic colleagues, Mr. Graham was a fierce defender of the Jewish state, once stating, “If America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us.”
A critic of President Trump when Mr. Trump was a candidate in 2016, the senator became one of the commander in chief’s closest allies in Mr. Trump’s first and second terms.
After Mr. Graham’s death, the president said of him: “If he wanted to get something, if he thought he was right, and he had people against him, he could be very tough, actually.”
Mr. Graham will also be remembered for his stalwart defense of Brett M. Kavanaugh during his 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearing. He stood strongly against further delays in the process over decades-old allegations of sexual assault brought by Christine Blasey Ford.
Mr. Graham was withering in his scorn for his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee, describing the future Supreme Court justice as a victim who had “been put through hell” by “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.”
Many believe that Mr. Graham single-handedly saved the Kavanaugh nomination, thus altering the future makeup of the Supreme Court.
It is difficult to sum up a life as large as that of Sen. Lindsey Olin Graham. It may take decades to fully measure his impact on America and the world.
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