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All the President’s Mavericks
16.10.09

“Forget Sarah Palin,” gushed the Associated Press’ Laurie Kellman. “The female
maverick of the Republican Party is Sen. Olympia Snowe.” Soon it
reverberated throughout the media echo chamber. “Take note
Palin,” advised the headline writers of a Delaware newspaper.
“Snowe is a true GOP maverick.” Asked another paper, “Palin who?”

So began the media lovefest for the liberal Republican senator
from Maine after she cast a decisive vote in favor of Sen. Max
Baucus’s (D-Mont.) version of a national health care bill in the
Senate Finance Committee. Snowe is being portrayed as a living
embodiment of the Founding Fathers’ vision for American
government, an amalgamation of Margaret Thatcher and Joan of Arc.

Not even media critic Howard Kurtz can
stomach it. He acknowledged that “Republican defectors tend to get good
press especially, as in this case, if they’re helping salvage a
Democratic president’s top domestic priority.”

“Imagine the coverage a Democratic senator would have gotten by
breaking with his party to help George Bush pass his Social
Security plan,” Kurtz continued. “No one hailed Joe Lieberman
(yes, he’s an independent, but he caucuses with the Dems) for
turning against Obama on the Baucus bill.”

The “maverick” meme was popularized by John McCain and Palin
during the 2008 campaign, but it has since become a favorite
liberal term of endearment for any Republican willing to follow
the president into deepening the federal government’s insolvency.
And mavericks, like misery, love company.

Lindsey Graham has also entered the maverick sweepstakes. Steve
Pendlebury of AOL News enthused that “when it comes to going rogue, Snowe’s Senate
colleague from South Carolina appears to have the edge.” Graham
indicated in a , not even
John McCain finds the Graham-Kerry proposal persuasive.

Graham is also taking a bold stand against Congressman Ron Paul
(R-Texas) and members of the tiny Constitution Party. “We’re not
going to be the party of angry white guys,” Graham, a white guy,
angrily told a town hall meeting at Furman University. “I’m not
going to let it be hijacked by Ron Paul.”

Whatever one thinks of the Paulistas, this is hardly speaking
truth to power. Paul rebelled against a president of his own
party in voting against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He
defied his president on the Medicare prescription drug benefit,
No Child Left Behind, and amnesty for illegal immigrants. He even
voted against the war in Iraq. Paul’s grassroots following, while
vocal, remains a rump faction within the GOP. Paul frequently
finds himself alone in the congressional wing of his party.

Both Graham and Snowe voted with President Bush on virtually all
of the above. They now seem poised to be similarly solicitous of
President Obama. It is an odd sort of maverick who demonstrates
his independence by regularly voting with those who are in power.
When moderate Republican senators saved the Obama
administration’s stimulus plan, Ross Douthat, now a columnist, described their mentality well: “Take what the party in power
wants, subtract as much money as you can without infuriating
them, vote yes, and declare victory.”

Perhaps the real mavericks are the moderate-to-conservative
Democrats, who are holding out for greater concessions from their
party on health care and cap-and-trade than those that satisfy
Snowe and Graham. Or the liberals of the Congressional
Progressive Caucus who would rather deny a president of their own
party a key legislative victory than give up on the public option
they believe is central to their vision of health care reform. Or
the conservative Republicans and constitutionalists who spent
eight years opposing Obama’s predecessor from the right.

Mavericks of this kind seldom win as much favorable press because
they are usually on the losing side of votes rather than the
winning side. There is also a strong bias in favor of mavericks
who vote for bigger government. When a politician stands against
a bill enlarging the federal role in health care, expect any of
their ties to the insurance industry or drug-company to be widely
mentioned. When a pro-Obamacare public figure is in the employ of
interests that, as 10.16.09 @ 6:28AM

“..Mavericks of this kind seldom win as much favorable press
because they are usually on the losing side of votes rather than
the winning side… There is also a strong bias in favor of
mavericks who vote for bigger government…”

This is all true, but it’s too complicated, and it’s the kind of
complication that is about making the writer look more clever
than he would if he stated the simple, bald truth.

There is a strong bias in favor of Democrats belonging to the
Democrat party promoting Democrat policies by supporting Democrat
politicians whether they be Democrat presidents or Democrat
congressman, a Democrat bias implemented by Democrat pundits
working for Democrat editors and hoping to get on Democrat TV
with Democrat hosts to meet Democrat celebrities.