A New Maverick in the Game

I’ve always loved mavericks, the woman or man who swims against the tide to boldly go where . . .
. . . well, to kinda buck the current a little even if it is unpopular. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have caught my attention with their "maverick" claims.

True, John McCain joined with Russ Feingold to craft the McCain-Feingold Act. Trouble is, the same conservative activists who have signed on to his presidential campaign are also hard at work trying to undo his maverick legislation.

True, he was a maverick when Bush lowered taxes for the rich, saying it would put an undue burden on the middle class. Trouble is, he now wants to keep the cuts. Does that unmaverick him?

Maverick Sarah Palin, too, bucked the tide by changing her mind and not building a bridge but accepting the funding anyway. (I had a maverick builder do that to me once, accepting funding for insulation he never put into my house. "Maverick" wasn’t the name I called him, however.)

But now I have a new maverick to admire, one who took McCain and Palin’s maverick bids, called them, and raised them: Colin Powell!

Ol’ Colin Powell makes McCain and Palin look like they’re swimming "against the current" in the shallow end of the pool, splashing around like crazy but not going anywhere.

Powell, on the other hand, is swimming against the party that "elevated him" to the lofty position he holds. He’s swimming against the sharks who are now out for his blood.

Are you looking for a maverick? Look no further than Colin Powell.

I’m sure both McCain and Palin have deep admiration for their fellow maverick.