SAN DIEGO — If you've ever written a eulogy, you already know that human beings are complicated.

At the end of the ride, we'll be proud of some of the things we've done but regret others. You take the good with the bad.

Most people don't want to be judged for the worst thing they did. But they don't give the same grace to elected officials.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., died recently at 71 due to a tear in his aorta caused by cardiovascular disease. Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, his 10th since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Even though I've covered U.S. politics for more than 35 years, I never met Graham. Still, he was a constant presence. He entered national politics when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994. My career in journalism started in 1989.

I did know and like Graham's best friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who passed away in 2018. I also met and liked Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who died in 2024. Together, Graham, McCain and Lieberman became known as the 'Three Amigos" — a globetrotting trio that met with foreign leaders, supported U.S. troops and advanced the interests of America.

It is not in America's interest to be a place where — because our politics are so dysfunctional and our dialogue so fractured — we only mourn those whom we agreed with 100% of the time.

If that were to happen — given how Americans live in our own political reality, and how much we bicker with each other — funeral homes would be empty, florists would close and whoever carves those sweet words onto headstones would be out of work.

There would be no "mourning" in America because no one agrees with anyone 100% of the time

Americans need to grow up and give credit where it is due, without whitewashing legitimate criticisms. There is nothing wrong with pointing out the good with the bad.

At the moment, a lot of folks in the mutually co-dependent worlds of media and politics are trying to decipher Graham's legacy. His life unfolded in chapters, and each was unique and important to building the man he became. Sometimes, the native of the Palmetto State was courageous — other times, not so much.

Since I didn't know Graham, I won't write a eulogy. But, as a journalist, I will issue a report card.

For coming from nothing and making something of himself; for serving his country in Congress and in the U.S. Air Force for three decades; for being a champion of Israel and Ukraine and a critic of Iran and Russia; for sticking his neck out to join McCain as a vocal advocate for immigration reform including legal status for the undocumented (for which nativist trolls nicknamed him "Grahamnesty," prompting Graham to respond that America needed to "tell the racists to shut up"); for cutting off a voter at a town hall in Sioux City, Iowa in 2015 who suggested that we make being Muslim a crime and telling the man: "I don't want you to vote for me" because "I couldn't disagree with you more"; and for calling out Donald Trump in 2016 as a xenophobic "bigot" and warning the GOP that it would be "destroyed" and "deserve it" if the party nominated the real estate mogul for president, Graham gets "A's and "B's."

But for falling in line behind Trump and becoming a vocal defender of the 45th and 47th president even to the point of excusing away the commander-in-chief's unique mixture of madness and incompetence; for slouching toward his own form of bigotry by turning a blind eye to the concerns of the LBGTQ community and failing to keep up with the times by protecting the rights of transgender Americans; for shepherding as chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee the nominations of three Trump picks for the Supreme Court who would go on to in different opinions do serious damage to the Constitution; for doing a poor job of protecting the civil rights of Black Americans because he seemed more sympathetic to the idea that the real victims of racial injustice in America were white; and for taking too lightly the Jan. 6 insurrection and attack on Capitol including the many attacks on police officers by the MAGA mob, Graham gets "D's" and "F's."

Americans can remember whatever version of Lindsey Graham they like. The South Carolinian left behind plenty of material to argue over in a complicated life that was well lived. As legacies go, that's not half bad.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Henry A at Unsplash