WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S. C.), the late Sen. John McCain ’s pal on Capitol Hill, said Tuesday that he…
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S. C.), the late Sen. John McCain ’s pal on Capitol Hill, said Tuesday that he believed the Arizona Republican’s lasting legacy is that he “taught us how to lose.”
“When you go around the world people remember his concession speech as much as anything else,” Graham said speaking of the night in November 2008 that McCain lost the White House to then-Sen. Barack Obama. “So he healed the nation at the time he was hurting.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, with his voice cracking sporadically, Graham retold some of McCain’s favorite jokes, listed the lessons he learned from the six-term senator and reminded his audience of the times McCain’s policy positions were right.
“I’m going to try and make this somewhat fun, even though I don’t feel in a funny mood right now,” Graham said.
Graham pointed to his tie, noting it was a Naval Academy tie — McCain’s alma mater — and recalled how McCain would often say he wished Graham had been a member of his Naval Academy class. “I would have been sixth from the bottom, not fifth,” Graham said he would say.
“So thank you very much John. Humiliation and affection were constant companions. The more he humiliated you, the more he liked you,” Graham explained. “In that regard I was well-served.”
McCain also liked to joke that Arizona, the birthplace of three losing presidential candidates, is “the only place in the nation where mothers tell their children you can never grow up to be president,” Graham said.
“Jeff remember that, maybe you can break the string,” Graham said to Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has hinted he has future presidential ambitions.
Graham called out other senators too, telling Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that he could inherit McCain’s dumb jokes, while name-dropping Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R. I.), urging him to be patient, like McCain, with his colleagues.
“He believed in climate change, Sheldon, and so do I,” Graham said. “But there’s a practical streak in John that I think made him very successful because you have to let people catch up to you. You have to have a rhythm and a pace.”
The South Carolina reminded his fellow lawmakers when McCain had been right.
“I remember him embracing a war that nobody wanted to talk about because he understood the cost to lose it,” Graham said, speaking of the Iraqi surge.
“He talked about what would happen in Iraq if we left. He was right. He talked about what happened in Syria if we didn’t get involved. He was right,” Graham continued. “Why? Because warriors are the best, I believe, at making peace.”
Graham formulated his speech like a military “after action” report, which he assigned the code name “Operation Maverick.”
“The source of the report is me, his political wingman, code name ‘Old Jerk’ — you’ve all got your names and earned them like I did — who was lucky enough to walk in his shadow and witness history up close,” Graham said.
Graham said he would characterize “Operation Maverick” as “wildly successful.” “It made the world a better place. It gave the nation something to talk about at a time when we can’t agree on anything. The only time MSNBC, CNN and Fox are saying the same thing.”
“Not universal acceptance of the life of John McCain,” Graham remarked. “But pretty damn close.”
