THE REAL MAVERICK

Running for re-election in Arizona, 2008 Republicult presidential nominee John McCain is having a hard time of it. He's being challenged in the primary by a former Congressman named J.D. Hayworth, who is physically though not mentally a giant and who is bent on portraying McCain as a dirty, stinking, unAmerican moderate.

Think what it means to live in a country where one of the two major parties considers "moderate" to be morally equivalent to"child molester." Over the centuries, from the ancient Greeks onward, moderation was honored as evidence of wisdom, good will, and self-control.

McCain is desperate to prove himself innocent of the charge of moderation. So the other day he did something desperate and desperately dumb. He told us he's no maverick! This after a presidential campaign in which he and his runningmate assured us they were mavericks, and that that was something real swell.

"Maverick" seemed to function at the time as a hint that McCain wouldn't be confined to the Republicult's hidebound and extremist ways. And after all, he had evolved from a typical Goldwaterite into an interesting and very independent reform-minded senator.

Now, however, with his orthodoxy being questioned, admitting to maverick ways would be equivalent to confessing to moderation. He would be doomed.

But in denying that he's a maverick, he has opened the door to Hayworth broadcasting all those '08 clips in which he boasted of being mavericky. He would have done better to keep the maverick label but explain that it means he won't go along with anything moderate or intelligent that his fellow Repubs might come up with.

For now, he seems to have repudiated himself, which is a hard thing to respect.

At one time America had a great man who was not only a maverick but was born with Maverick as his surname. He was Maury Maverick, for several terms a New Deal Congressman from Texas and later mayor of San Antonio. In his time he was one of the most valuable and most conspicuous members of Congress. Unfortunately, his state was too conservative to keep sending him back.

Though he didn't mind going it alone, as a Congressman Maury Maverick was practical and could get along with others and get things done. As a personality he was an original: fearless, independent, bold, funny, smart, ornery, imaginative, integritous. And he would rather have lost than put on a show of phoniness like McCain.

He had a sense of humor that punctured nonsense and pretense. He gave us the term "gobbledygook" for impenetrable bureaucratic prose. When someone was looking for a more American word for hors d'oeuvres, he suggested "dingledoos."

This country doesn't need public officials who fear moderation and refuse to be seen as who they are. God grant us more Mavericks. We can really use them now!