Sunday, August 31, 2008

McCain/Palin: Not Mavericks!

Sometimes, I think people don't understand what 'maverick' means. It's to be a dissenter among ones associates, to be the one who breaks away from the pack.

The narrative beginning to be spun about the McCain/Palin ticket as one of reform is laughable and inaccurate.

Here is the GOP's draft of their 2008 platform. It's a marvel of cognitive dissonance and plain old spin. I'm sorry, NO mention of Iraq at all??

It used to be, you could rely on McCain to be at least less hardcore about a couple of things: immigration (he was one of the drafters of the Dream Act, after all) and stem cell research. Oh, and this war being a total mess. Back then, that was enough to mark him with his 'maverick' status.

(Apparently, GOP standards for dissent are low.)

But can McCain, and presumably Palin, be counted on to be real dissenters? I don't think so. He's backed off his support for his own legislation, he's reified his support of the war and he wasn't really that much of a dissenter if he voted with the President 90% of the time, anyway.

Over on Screed, I take a look at Palin's very slim record and compare it to the GOP's platform and their favorite sacred cows. There's not much difference between her and them.

So what's she dissenting? She looks like just another Republican to me.

[ok, I have to get some food. I'll write about the GOP platform more later today. Yay for three day weekends!)

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