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| Graham |
In The Wisdom of
Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton wrote,
“Journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones Dead’ to people who never
knew that Lord Jones was alive.”
Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly
and unexpectedly of a ruptured aorta, brought on according to a preliminary
post-mortem by hardened arteries, never had that problem.
By most accounts following his death, both from Republicans
and Democrats, Graham was able to traverse the usual mine-sown partisan
political ground without loss of limb or humor.
His relationship with Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick
Blumenthal is a case in point. The two –
one an anti-Trump Democrat, the other a pro-Trump Republican -- have frequently
traveled to Ukraine during that country’s darkest hours. Both set their faces against Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s absurd notion that Ukraine “is not even a country”
shortly before invading the country and dragging pieces of it across adjustable
borders back to Mother Russia. When
Russia was little more than a rude wooden fort in Moscow, Ukrainians were known
as “the people of the Rus,” and Kiev was a thriving metropolis.
Putin regarded the breakup of the Soviet Union as the
greatest disaster of the 20th century. Former Soviet captured
nations, Ukraine among them, thought differently. Putin’s bombing of Ukraine --after
he had, with the concurrence of Western states, gobbled up Crimea -- put both Ukraine
and other Soviet bloc nations, most importantly Poland, in mind of Stalin’s
murderous assault on Ukraine in 1932-33. Connecticut Commentary addressed the
Holodomor in a 2021 article: “First Ukraine, Then Taiwan, Then the World.”
The many trips to Ukraine of Graham and Blumenthal were
designed to bring to the U.S. Congress necessary information that would allow
the United States to develop what the German’s might call a realpolitik that would allow western
states to manfully and justly resist the reimposition of Putin’s much lamented
Soviet Empire.
Stalin had starved Ukraine into submission; Putin would bomb
Ukraine into submission. Under Stalin and again under Putin, Ukraine has become
a Russian imperialist gateway to Western Europe. Putin knows this, Graham and Blumenthal knew
it, and their mission was to convince U.S. chiefs of state Biden and Trump that
the Ukrainian resistance cannot succeed in the absence of offensive – not
merely defensive – armaments. Blumenthal
attempted to convince the Biden administration to send jets to Ukraine – no
deal. Almost with his last breath, Graham attempted to persuade the Trump
administration to fortify Ukraine with patriot missiles that would destroy
Russian ballistic missiles against which the ravaged country remains
defenseless.
Graham died suddenly, still full of years, of aortic
dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. “I can’t die now,” Graham
told Trump. “I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out and
do Israeli-Saudi normalization.”
As concerns Ukraine, Graham and Blumenthal were brothers in
arms. Both, students of history, saw the future under a possible Putin Soviet Reconquista
and knew it wouldn’t work – because it did not work the first time when
Ukraine, starved into submission, no longer served as a breakwater to Russian
ambition.
But they are not two of a kind. Graham’s finest hour was
when he blew up Democrat Party resistance to Judge Brett Kavanagh’s admission
to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The resistance – both Graham and
Kavanagh’s detractors knew – was grounded in false testimony falsely compelled
by Kavanaugh’s … shall we call them “lynch mob?”
In a contemporaneous account of the Kavanagh hearing and the
role played in it by Blumenthal, Connecticut Commentary noted: “Here
are some facts that were elicited during the hearing. 1) Blasey Ford [unwillingly
impressed into service by partisan Democrats] did not report the incident to
police at the time it had occurred, three decades before her testimony. Indeed,
she initially spoke of the incident to no one; 2) she was at first reluctant to
testify, but was pressed into service after she had been identified publicly by
Democrat politicians familiar with her account, many of whom opposed the
Kavanaugh nomination, but not, as it turned out for jurisprudential
reasons. Kavanaugh was awarded the U.S.
Bar Association's highest rating. We do not know whether Blumenthal was one of
those who outed Blasey Ford; 3) three direct witnesses Blasey Ford identified
as having been present when the molestation had occurred testified under oath
that they could not support her charge.”
During his questioning of Kavanaugh, Graham
averted to some of these points and publicaly burst into flames of heartfelt
indignation. Not only Kavanaugh but Ford as well was a victim of the
Democrat’s suggestive and highly misleading “sham investigation.”
When we leave, we leave much undone. All his life, Graham
struggled against great odds to do the honorable thing, always the mark of an
honorable man. And, to the extent that we control the social and political
environment that is our portion in life, he succeeded. He had no enemies in
Congress, that overgrown thicket of hot and nettlesome opinion, and was by all
accounts clearly understood and liked.
Though single and unmarried, he loved his own.
When Graham was 20, both his parents died. He adopted his
sister so that he might care for her. His sister, it is hoped, will take his
place temporarily in the U.S Congress until a successor is chosen to occupy one
of the most honorable seats in congress. That would represent an appropriate
closing of a circle overflowing with honor.
Blumenthal said of Graham following his untimely death, “I
will forever remember our last lengthy conversation this weekend, when he
exulted at reaching an agreement on our Russian sanctions bill & said,
‘this is a big effing deal—we all did good.’ He was tireless in pursuing
freedom for Ukraine & brought to this cause his signature relentless energy
& optimism. He marched to his own drummer. He could be strong-minded,
fiercely driven, & sometimes unpredictable, but also deeply compassionate
& sympathetic when he saw suffering & injustice. I was always impressed
with his kindness to people we met along the way.”
Well said.
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