The Myth of McCain as Political Maverick

David Ignatius has a positively silly column in the Washington Post today in which he parrots the lame old myth of 2008 presidential hopeful John McCain as a straight-talking, tough-guy maverick who damns political consequences and goes his own way. As a Veteran with boundless admiration for McCain's heroic conduct during his imprisonment in Vietnam, I must also evaluate his career incarnation which, if you examine his record, shows him to be a 98-pound political weakling, who does best when others tell him what to do.

Even putting aside his nauseating and ongoing devotion to the White House after what Team Bush did to smear him, his wife and his child in the 2000 presidential primary, McCain's Senate record shows a man who toes the party line and is a straight-shooting nonconformist only when George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Bill Frist tell him he's allowed to be.

The biggest disconnect from reality comes in the public perception of McCain as a potential president whose strong suit would be national security, even though his record in the 109th Congress shows a man who follows the Senate Majority Leader's commands, no matter how much weaker those edicts make our country.

Here are just a few samples of the things McCain voted against in 2005 and 2006, while offering no substantive legislation himself to strengthen America:Continued...

Read full Journal entry