OT - I lie, cheat, and steal a lot less than the "other" guy.

[Lurker]

This is what I don't understand, someone who is much smarter then myself please explain...

How the hell is John McCain a maverick?  Because he doesn't fully cater to the religious right?  I have not seen him do much that would make me think 'Wow this guy is really going against the grain in his party, this is nuts'  How is Palin a maverick?  She sounds EXACTLY like a right wing neo-con.  Down to the jesus command us to do it crap and everything....

Well, here is a little article about the man named Samuel Maverick that led to the word maverick being added to the lexicon...

Any San Antonian can tell you McCain is hardly 'The Original Maverick'

In early August when the McCain campaign aired a television advertisement describing John McCain as the ?original maverick,? my truth meter spiked, but I let it pass.

After all, this is the silly season in American politics.

Since then, not an hour has gone by in the endless 24-hour news cycle that the word ?maverick? has not been grotesquely misused by both the right and left.

Time magazine now calls Cindy McCain ?Mrs. Maverick.? Sarah Palin is ?Maverick Squared.? The title of Sen. Joe Lieberman's speech to the Republican convention was ?John McCain: The Original Maverick.?

In a word: No.

To anyone who lives in San Antonio ? where the word maverick was born ? this is a cultural matter that goes well beyond politics. Soon the word ?original maverick? will suffer the same sad fate as the word ?original margarita? ? one watered-down version after another popping up on every corner.

Let's start with what a maverick is not. A maverick is not a record company, although Madonna's is because she has the word confused with rebel. A maverick is not a basketball team in Dallas owned by Mark Cuban, who believes it means loud-mouthed contrarian.

Unfortunately for McCain, a maverick is not someone who before 2008 occasionally broke with the status quo within his own party by acknowledging the clear threat of climate change and championing the need to give unauthorized immigrants a path to legal residency.

Now, McCain has thrown away the pre-2008 playbook and is playing by Karl Rove's rules, which makes McCain a storied conformist, the living antonym of the word maverick.

As a matter of historical fact, the original maverick was Samuel Augustus Maverick, a political dissenter from South Carolina who arrived in San Antonio in the fall of 1835, helped draft the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, was taken prisoner by Mexican forces, and was force-marched 1,800 miles to a prison in Peyote, Mexico, where he stayed in chains rather than accept an offer of freedom from Santa Anna.

Samuel Maverick was twice mayor of San Antonio. In addition, he was a land speculator who paid little attention to his cattle and did not bother to brand them. These unbranded cattle were picked up by cowboys and labeled ?mavericks.?

His gift to American lexicon had much more to do with politics and ideas than cattle ? a maverick is, at heart, a dissenter, someone who resists any affiliation with any herd, group or faction.

By definition, the leader of any political party is not a maverick. Mavericks are loners and more often than not are defined by lost, principled battles.

It was Samuel Maverick's grandson Maury Maverick Sr. who further extended the word's political connotations. After taking on the Ku Klux Klan in San Antonio and beyond, Maverick won election to the U.S. House in 1935.

There he and a group of other liberal Democrats pressed to push the New Deal further than President Franklin Roosevelt had in mind. These members of Congress ? first identified on March 10, 1935, as ?the Mavericks? by the Washington Herald ? pushed through legislation to clear slums, created the National Cancer Institute, and passed bills to conserve natural resources.

Maverick was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1939 and served only one term, yet still ranks as the city's most progressive mayor. He got federal money to build the San Antonio River Walk and reformed corruption at City Hall.

In 1939, Maverick earned his signature name by waging a lost cause on behalf of the First Amendment. He granted a permit to a few members of the Communist Party, including local labor leader Emma Tenayuca, to speak at the Municipal Auditorium. Before any speeches were made, a lynch mob gathered outside the auditorium and hung Maverick in effigy. His political career was finished.

His son Maury Maverick Jr., my friend and mentor who died five years ago at the age of 82, continued to push the definition of the word in many arenas of civic engagement.

As a member of the Texas House during the McCarthy era, Maury Jr. broke with fellow Democrats to oppose the banning of books and other anti-communist hysteria laws that he believed violated the U.S. Constitution. As a civil rights lawyer, he broke with President Lyndon Johnson, once his friend, over the Vietnam War.

Finally, as a columnist for this newspaper for 33 years, Maury Jr. wrote more than 1,000 columns, each one an exercise in dissent and self-definition.

If he were writing this particular column today, this is what I believe Maury Jr., direct heir to the Maverick legacy, would raise his voice to say: ?I am a Maverick. I know Mavericks. And John McCain is no Maverick.?

[westkoast]

Pretty cool article Lurker.  Thanks for posting that.  I guess Texas has done some OK things for this country.....

[JoMal]

Agreed. Thanks for the article, Lurker.

[jemagee]

Pretty cool article Lurker.  Thanks for posting that.  I guess Texas has done some OK things for this country.....

I'm gonna think the bad still outweighs the good, and that's just taking into account the bush family

[Reality]

Mr Burns ran for governor of Springfield.  Remember how his campaign was conducted?   
Along with that fitting parody came fitting quotes:

Mr. Burns: Oh, get off your soap box, Simpson, do you realize how much it costs to run for office?  More than any honest man could afford.
Homer: I bet you could afford it, though.  (nervously) Don't get me wrong, I mean you're an honest man, I just mean that you could afford to run for governor if you felt like it. Of course I'm just rambling cause... because you keep staring at me like that, but, but it's true!

Advisor: Congratulations, Mr. Burns, the latest polls show you are up six points.
Mr. Burns: Ah, giving me a total of?
Advisor: Six. But we're on our way.


Marge to the rescue.

Mr. Burns: This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you.
Smithers: You are noble and poetic in defeat, sir.

[Lurker]

Pretty cool article Lurker.  Thanks for posting that.  I guess Texas has done some OK things for this country.....

I'm gonna think the bad still outweighs the good, and that's just taking into account the bush family

It's just that Texas can't provide good presidents.  They have provided many solid congressmen and senators.  Some of the first hispanics, blacks and women to serve in congress have been from Texas.

But I knew Bush was going to be bad...he perfected his destruction of the education system and partisan politics in Texas before he was foisted on the country.  I just always thought that congress would provide enough checks and balances.  Then came 9/11 and the Republican controlled congress with generous help from all those patriotic Democrats basically gave Bush free reign...and he hasn't stopped trying to grab total control since.

[jemagee]

It's just that Texas can't provide good presidents.  They have provided many solid congressmen and senators.  Some of the first hispanics, blacks and women to serve in congress have been from Texas.

I was thinking beyond just politics, and mostly kidding. 

[WayOutWest]

Some of the first hispanics, blacks and women to serve in congress have been from Texas.

No wonder this country is in the toilet!

[Lurker]

Some of the first hispanics, blacks and women to serve in congress have been from Texas.

No wonder this country is in the toilet!

Yep, no Zapotecs.

[Ted]

In that case, read this as a counter to your link. The author of the fateful memo mentioned was instigated by an agency created by Clinton, BTW. Too bad they gave it to Bush during his "summer break" from Washington. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/19/september11.usa

Sorry . . . my bad.  I thought we were talking about my response to the following:

I guess the Demos failed to get Bin Laden . . .

I agreed with WoW's astute comment because I believed it to be true, based on the many articles I have read on that specific subject.  The link I posted leads to one example of those articles.

I should have realized we were changing subjects from "I guess the Demos failed to get Bin Laden" to "Bush, Inc. failed to stop 9/11."  If I had, I could have saved us an argument because I now believe the FBI and Bush Administration's failure to react to the warnings you mention is one of two colossal U.S. government blunders in history--the other is the subject to which I responded.

The author of the fateful memo mentioned was instigated by an agency created by Clinton, BTW.

The author was "instigated" by an agency?  What?  Oh . . . wait.  Reading between the lines (here enters that 9th grade level), I assume you are implying that because Clinton "instigated" the agency that employed the author of the warning memo, Clinton would deserve the credit for the content of that memo, and thus be absolved of any responsibility for failing to accept Bin Laden's head on silver platter years earlier.  You got me there . . . that's some tight logic.  But again, you're melding two different topics here--on one of them, we agree.

Here's the truth.  Republicans would have you believe that 9/11 would not have happened had Clinton or Berger acted on one of Sudan's many offers.  (I don't buy it.  Not necessarily true.  IMO, Al Qaeda was already too big to be stopped by the loss of Bin Laden.)  Democrats would have you believe that 9/11 would not have happened if the FBI and the executive branch would have reacted to the warnings it received.  (Not necessarily true, either. There were a lot of people involved in that plot.)

Both groups seek only to absolve themselves of responsibility and to maintain or regain power.  On which side the average American falls depends on how much of party lemming he or she is, in my opinion.

[Reality]

Saw a 20/20 or 60 minutes type show that claimed in 1998 Clin-Ton had that terrorist psycho what the military calls "locked and loaded', meaning after an extensive surveillance he was in the crosshairs and they merely were waiting for Billy to say "go'.  Clin-Ton inexplicably called the order off, stunning the entire military op.  Same guy?? who went on to mastermind both 9/11 and i thought was behind all the IUD blow ups in Bush Oil Country, i mean Iraq.  The guy they finally got camped out in Iraq.

[westkoast]

Saw a 20/20 or 60 minutes type show that claimed in 1998 Clin-Ton had that terrorist psycho what the military calls "locked and loaded', meaning after an extensive surveillance he was in the crosshairs and they merely were waiting for Billy to say "go'.  Clin-Ton inexplicably called the order off, stunning the entire military op.  Same guy?? who went on to mastermind both 9/11 and i thought was behind all the IUD blow ups in Bush Oil Country, i mean Iraq.  The guy they finally got camped out in Iraq.

I believe the country was still hung up on Sadaam at the time...they launched the bunker busters on ol Hussein thinking he was the real threat.

Can we all agree that both Dems and Reps f'd up the Bin Ladin/Al Queda thing?  The Republicans trained him, the Dems ignored him, and the Republicans failed to find him after the fact.  This has been going on since the 80s...not 2001.

[jemagee]

I have always thought that the US government doesn't use enough 'wet work' personally

[jemagee]

Saw a 20/20 or 60 minutes type show that claimed in 1998 Clin-Ton had that terrorist psycho what the military calls "locked and loaded', meaning after an extensive surveillance he was in the crosshairs and they merely were waiting for Billy to say "go'.  Clin-Ton inexplicably called the order off, stunning the entire military op.  Same guy?? who went on to mastermind both 9/11 and i thought was behind all the IUD blow ups in Bush Oil Country, i mean Iraq.  The guy they finally got camped out in Iraq.

I believe the country was still hung up on Sadaam at the time...they launched the bunker busters on ol Hussein thinking he was the real threat.

Can we all agree that both Dems and Reps f'd up the Bin Ladin/Al Queda thing?  The Republicans trained him, the Dems ignored him, and the Republicans failed to find him after the fact.  This has been going on since the 80s...not 2001.

Charlie Wilsons War is a wonderful object lesson in unintended consequences

[Ted]

I have always thought that the US government doesn't use enough 'wet work' personally

What's "wet work"?