From The Niagara Falls Reporter
By Jim Hightower

If you watched the television coverage of Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, you might have noticed a delegate brandishing a hand-lettered sign proclaiming McCain to be “THE MAVRICK.”

The misspelling was made even more embarrassing by the fact that, just when the sign was being flashed to a worldwide TV audience, the GOP nominee was mentioning the need to deal with adult literacy.

Worse than a misspelling, however, is the gross misapplication of the label. Far from a maverick, McCain is a 26-year Washington insider who is now the trusted candidate of America’s corporate establishment. He’s such a reliable conformist to the corporate agenda that, at last count, 177 lobbyists for Big Oil, Wall Street banks, telecommunications giants and other industries form the very core of his campaign. The campaign manager, chief strategist, top economic adviser, foreign policy director and fund-raising chairman — lobbyists all.

Yet there’s a concerted and cynical political effort to dress the candidate as an unruly outsider who’ll defy the corporate order in Washington. McCain bills himself as a “maverick of the Senate,” and Sarah Palin perkily joins the chorus, describing the ticket as “a team of mavericks.”

Puh-leeze. It’s been my privilege to know some genuine mavericks (including one actually named Maverick), and I can tell you, John McCain is not one of them.

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