I love how everyone always refers to McCain as a “maverick”. Is aligning himself with the GOP on a majority of issues a maverick?

Today’s Washington Post gives us the answer, by the family the term Maverick was branded for:

Arizona Sen. John McCain happily donned the “maverick” mantle in 2000 as he climbed aboard the Straight Talk Express and set off on his quest for the presidency. And he’s still wearing it today, if a nappier version, as he rides into Tuesday’s Texas primary as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

A bad fit, claimed my old friend Maury — a Maverick by birthright and a maverick by inclination.

A San Antonio human rights lawyer and former state legislator who wrote a fervidly liberal newspaper column almost until the day he died in 2003 at 82, Maury Maverick Jr. considered himself a zealot for freedom. He was proud that his family had bequeathed its name to the vernacular, but he could be downright cantankerous about what he considered the illegitimate use of the eponym.

Just as not every cola is a Coke and not every tissue is a Kleenex, not every nonconformist is a maverick, the last of the maverick Mavericks insisted. As a former Marine who served in the Pacific during World War II, he saluted McCain’s military service and his bravery during years of captivity. But Maury insisted that any conservative Republican, by definition, adhered too closely to the status quo to deserve the hallowed label.

Continue reading here.

So there you have it. The real Maverick’s family, by name and heritage, says John McCain is not a maverick. In fact the last real Maverick was a liberal. That really has to eat at the wingnuts.