It was another week in the life of Lindsey Graham (R-No Man's Land). 
 
 On Monday, Sen. James Inhofe said his Republican colleague from South Carolina had "chosen to ignore" the American people and was making a deal with President Obama that would increase the "risk of terrorist activity." 
 
 On Tuesday, the conservative Web site Redstate.com branded Graham a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only), not to mention a "cretin" and "a poster child for everything that is anathema to conservative Republicans." 
 
 Wednesday, it was Glenn Beck's turn to pick on the senator. "You read his stuff, it's like reading Obama's campaign speech," the Fox News host said. 
 
 Finally, on Thursday, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, accused Graham and Obama in a New York Post op-ed of a "deal with the devil" and said Graham "hasn't thought this through." 
 
 After a week like that, most of Graham's colleagues would feel as though they'd lost a tickle fight to Eric Massa. But Graham has heard it all before. "What drives my train," he told me when I reached him late in the week, "is not their approval; it's getting it right." 
 
 The fact that such a sentiment makes Graham an oddball in the Republican Party, and to some extent Congress generally, says less about him than about his colleagues. For all his supposed heresies -- on climate change, judicial nominees, immigration and now his offer to help close the Guantanamo Bay prison -- Graham had a 2009 rating of 88 percent from the American Conservative Union and a lifetime rating of 90 percent. 
 
 "The people that call me a RINO would call Ronald Reagan a RINO," he protested. "Reagan worked with Tip O'Neill to increase taxes to save Social Security." What's changed is that "purity is replacing principled compromise," he lamented, as ideology enforcers in both parties threaten primary challenges against those who stray. 
 
 Though Graham doesn't have to face primary voters until 2014, his defiance of the GOP purity police is still courageous. His Republican colleagues in Congress, wetting their pants out of fear of the tea party movement, show no sign of joining him. 
 
 But Graham's latest offer should still be taken seriously by Obama's White House, which needs a way to recover from its self-inflicted wounds over Gitmo. Obama goofed twice, missing his deadline for closing the prison and then making the ruinous choice to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a criminal trial in New York. 
 
 This took an eight-year-old dispute to a new level of rage. On one side, there's now Liz Cheney's absurd accusation that Justice Department lawyers are al-Qaeda sympathizers. On the other side is the ACLU, which, in demanding civilian trials for 9/11 conspirators, ran an ad morphing Obama's face into George W. Bush's. 
 
 Graham has provided Obama a way out of this standoff: Send KSM to a military tribunal in exchange for Congress abandoning legislation that would deny funding to close Gitmo. Next, the administration would work with Congress to create a "national security court," which would govern how other current and future terrorism suspects can be held in preventive detention. 
 
 Bush and his unitary executive theory lawyers rejected this approach on grounds that it would interfere with presidential authority. Obama was open to the idea last year, before some on the left pushed back, opposing any legislation that would justify detention. But the ideological purists on both sides need to compromise. As Benjamin Wittes and his Brookings Institution colleagues point out, the system is a huge mess, with federal judges making up rules as they go along in a haphazard legal framework. 
 
 It will take some courage for Obama to defy his liberal base -- but nothing like the courage Graham will need to take on the Republican purity enforcers. "I'd be glad to argue with my colleagues in the Republican Party about the problems with Guantanamo Bay," he boasted. 
 
 That's the sort of talk that won Graham censures from GOP leadership in two South Carolina counties. He reasons that he "could stay in this job forever" by telling GOP primary voters what they want to hear. But he took a different route. "I'm not job-scared," he told me, because it has come to the point where "fear stops you from acting in the best interests of the country." 
 
 Of course, Graham wouldn't mind some company in his heresy. "I'd encourage my colleagues to do what's rational and not act out of fear," he said. Most Republicans are too job-scared to join him, but there's still hope for Obama. 
 
 The writer will be online to chat with readers at 1 p.m. on Monday. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion. ||||| The first female graduate of the Citadel is raising money in preparation for a 2014 primary challenge against GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. 
 
 Nancy Mace is scheduled to officially announce her political plans on Saturday, and the married mother of two is already signaling her intent to oust Mr. Graham from office next year by asking supporters to donate to her campaign. 
 
 “I need your help to make sure that South Carolina’s conservative values are represented in the U.S. Senate,” Mrs. Macesaid on her website. “We have a long campaign ahead of us, and we can’t do it without your support.” 
 
 Tea party groups have been clamoring for someone to try to topple Mr. Graham, who they say has habitually sold out the limited government principles that fuel the grass-roots movement. They call him a “RINO,” or “Republican In Name Only.” 
 
 Mrs. Mace’s campaign announcement will come roughly a week after a conservative South Carolina group launched a grassroots campaign targeting Mr. Graham in the 2014 election. 
 
 Carolina Conservatives United, a non-profit organization, said Mr. Graham has made a habit of saying one thing, but doing another, selling out their limited government principles and showing “contempt” for small government advocates. 
 
 “We never know which Lindsey Graham will show up in Washington each day,” said Bruce Carroll, the group’s chairman. “He’s more likely to side with liberal Senate Democrats on important votes than with Senator Tim Scott or the South Carolina Republican Congressional delegation.” 
 
 Mrs. Mace delivers a similar message on her website. 
 
 “Voters here in South Carolina are frustrated with the status quo,” she said. “Washington is out of touch, and the only way to change Washington is to change who we send to Washington.” 
 
 Mr. Graham appears to be in good financial shape as he looks toward winning a third term. As of June 30, he had $6.3 million cash on hand for re-election, and polls have shown he is on sturdy footing.
– After offering a Gitmo compromise to President Obama, Lindsey Graham got called everything from a "cretin" to someone making a "deal with the devil" this week by his fellow Republicans. That's just business as usual for Graham, whose designation may as well be "R-No Man's Land," writes Dana Milbank. Graham seems genuinely concerned with getting things right than with blindly sticking to some ideological purity test, and that, sadly, makes him an "oddball" on Capitol Hill. "Though Graham doesn't have to face primary voters until 2014, his defiance of the GOP purity police is still courageous," writes Milbank in the Washington Post. "His Republican colleagues in Congress, wetting their pants out of fear of the tea party movement, show no sign of joining him."