NYTimes: That Lindsey Graham Had Some Trouble With the Blacks, You Know

Lindsey Graham dies, and for about forty-eight hours something rare happened in Washington. Democrats who spent a decade calling him a hack put out statements that actually sounded like they meant it. Old colleagues told stories about him working a room, needling both sides, staying up too late arguing policy with people who disagreed with him. It was the kind of moment where you remember the Senate used to be a place where people who hated each other's politics could still like each other. And somehow, in the middle of that, the New York Times found a way to make it about race.

That's the real story here. Not that Graham was flawless on race, because nobody's claiming that, least of all us. The story is the instinct. A man dies, the tributes pour in from across the aisle, and instead of sitting with that for even a day, someone at the Times decided the more urgent task was reminding readers he had "trouble with the Blacks." As if warmth between political enemies is a problem that needs a footnote. As if the man's whole career has to be run back through one lens before anyone's allowed to grieve him honestly.

We're not asking for hagiography. Graham had plenty of critics on the right too, us included at times. But there's something telling about a newsroom that can't let a bipartisan moment of decency pass without injecting a racial gloss on it. It suggests the goodwill itself is the thing that bothers them, not the man.

People who actually served with Graham, of both parties, seemed capable of holding two thoughts at once: that he wasn't perfect, and that he mattered to them. The Times apparently can't manage that. Some people just can't let a man be mourned in peace..