The McCain Maverick Mythunderstanding.

Image from Slowpoke Comics.

If you believe that John McCain is a maverick, chances are that you're right of center or else you get most of your information from the Mainstream Media. Aren't you happy that you've got the internet.

While McCain may only be a maverick in his own mind, the Mainstream Media are happy to perpetuate John's fantasy.

Don't take my word for it. Eric Boehlert at Media Matters proves it.

"The campaign's general-election strategy is to sell the McCain brand to
show voters that he is distinct from President Bush and other Republicans," the
Post reported.

So guess what members of the press, including those at MSNBC, CNN, NBC,
The Washington Post, Newsweek,
the Politico, and The Boston Globe, have been doing incessantly in recent weeks.
They've been making glowing references to the durability and appeal of the
"McCain brand." I mean, how lucky can the Republicans get? The press is echoing
precisely the message that the candidate's advisers want repeated again and
again. What are the odds?

Still think that there's a liberal media out there doing its best to undermine everything that's great or good about this country?

Check this out. CNN does its part to keep President Bush from looking like the hypocritical, idiot that he is.

In reports during the 10 and 11 a.m. ET hours of the May 15 edition of CNN
Newsroom, CNN aired comments by Robert Gibbs, Sen. Barack Obama's communications
director, responding to President Bush's remarks that "[s]ome seem to believe we
should negotiate with terrorists and radicals," reportedly
in reference to Obama, but CNN spliced the audio clip to omit part of the
statement in which Gibbs noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like
Obama, has reportedly said that the United States needs to be willing to meet
with Iran. CNN had left intact Gibbs' reference to Gates in the audio clip of
Gibbs' comments it aired during the 9 a.m. hour of the program.

Pretty sneaky, huh?

But this isn't about the liberal media myth, it's about the John McCain/maverick myth.

To be honest, if you define maverick as willing to change your position in a heartbeat, then John McCain is truly a maverick.

After Bush's little Obama "appeasment" speech to the Israeli Knesset, John McCain jumped right on board with the President.

Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right,
and one of them is Neville Chamberlain. I believe that it’s not an accident that
our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the
United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists
in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.

I guess that thinking that you're a maverick effects the memory. Because he seemed not to remember Reagan's arms-for-hostages negotiations.

Now his campaign is saying that they never used the word "appeasement". Appeasement, appeasers, big difference.

PFOTENHAUER: Senator McCain responded directly himself and said he took the
president at his word, that those comments were not directed toward Senator
Obama. […]

SHUSTER: Nancy, does the McCain campaign believe that talking to our
enemies is the same as appeasing them?

PFOTENHAUER: We have never used the term appeasement and you know
that.

McCain conveniently forgets that, not too long ago, he was one of those appeasers.

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them,
one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous
administrations had such antipathy toward Hamas because of their dedication to
violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so ... But it's
a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and
a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving
them that."

So it shouldn't be too hard to believe that the man who made the following statement is now sucking up to the NRA.

The NRA is entitled to their advocacy. I don’t think they help the Republican
Party at all, but I don’t think they should in any way play a major role in the
Republican Party’s policy making. [CNN, 5/12/00]

You know a man must be a maverick if he says something like this,

“The political tactics of division and slander are not our values. They are
corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in
the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of
America shame our faith, our party and our country… Neither party should be
defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of
intolerance.”

and then seeks the endorsement of a lunatic like John Hagee, who says things like this,

“Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And
they the hunters shall hunt them” - that will be the Jews - “from every mountain
and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.” If that doesn't
describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust... you can't see that. So think about
this - I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who
entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Hertzel was? How many
of you don't have a clue who he was? WOO... Sweet God! Theodore Hertzel is the
father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said -
“this land is our land, God wants us to live there”. So he went to the Jews of
Europe and said, “I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel”. So few
went, Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did
not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is
someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the
Bible says - Jeremiah righty? - “they shall hunt them from every mountain and
from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks”, meaning: there's no place to
hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended:
I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How
did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God
said, “my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come BACK to the
land of Israel”. Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and
8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God
going to cause the Jewish people to come SPIRITUALLY alive and say, “the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God”?"

Wow, I never realized that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves. I bet they were "appeasers" too. It's just amazing that there are people out there who actually believe this garbage. Bruce Wilson of Talk to Action really put a lot of research in on John Hagee. If you missed the link above, here it is again.

Maverick McCain does have a set of standards, but they seem to be mostly double standards.

John McCain and the Dictator Money Trail

John McCain will fire you for lobbying for Burma, but he'll still take
your money.

Speaking of money, John McCain shows what a maverick he can be when it comes to his budget as president. He's a maverick because he's the only person that thinks building up Bush's deficit is the right thing for the country.

McCain’s Budget Would Create Largest Deficit In 25 Years, Largest
Debt Since WWII

You gotta admit, that's different.

McCain's health care policy is more Republican than maverick.

In fact, John McCain is more Republican than maverick.

Bush to join McCain at high-dollar campaign event.

Later