What’s Lindsey Graham up to?

The short answer is politics. The claim by Rep. Ilhan Omar that Sen. Graham is “compromised,” is beyond stupid.

Omar cites “the way [Graham] is behaving” towards President Trump. Graham was a major critic of Trump at one time, but now often supports the president.

But Graham sometimes does not support him. Just yesterday, he criticized Trump’s decision to cancel Nancy Pelosi’s junket. Recently, he criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria. And Graham expressed anger over the way Trump spoke of John McCain.

If Graham were “compromised,” he wouldn’t be behaving that way.

Graham was appalled that the GOP might nominate Trump and apprehensive about a Trump presidency, but appeased to some extent when he found himself in agreement with many of Trump’s policies. The same is true of many Republicans, including me.

I’m pretty sure Trump has no compromising information about me.

The foregoing would probably be sufficient to explain Graham’s behavior, but I think there’s something else at play: opportunism (but not in any bad sense).

Graham strongly favors amnesty for a goodly portion of the illegal immigrant population, has long supported lenient sentencing for federal felons, and wants a robust U.S. engagement in the Middle East. By becoming cozy with Trump, Graham improves (or thinks he improves) the chances of influencing him on such matters.

One can disagree, as I do, with some (or all) of Graham’s policy objectives. However, it’s perfectly reasonable, and indeed smart, for the Senator to try to advance them by getting on Trump’s good side. In doing, as I said, Graham isn’t compromising his principles because he does criticize Trump when the two disagree.

I’m pretty sure Graham wishes that some other Republican, perhaps almost any other Republican, were president. But Trump is the president we have and Graham is trying to make the most of it.

That’s called doing your job.

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