Back in the herd

Sorry, John, it's a little late in the day for that:

Arizona Sen. John McCain is trying to shake loose the mantle of the maverick brand he shared with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in 2008.

"I never considered myself a maverick," he told Newsweek. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities."

Many of us don't like to be labeled. If people call you, for example, a "conservative" or a "liberal" or a "libertarian," they tend to form their ideas of your beliefs based on the label, which gets it backwards. But you can't use a label yourself, indeed revel in it, campaign for president on it, gleefully call yourself that and then pretend you never even heard of such a silly thing. Writing in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog, Susan Davis, calls this one of those remarks by a politician "so surprising that it can stop you in your tracks . . . The statement is stunning many levels."

And appaarently, everybody is reporting, Sarah Palin didn't get the "I'm not a maverick" memo. As recently as March 26, she was on the campaign trail for McCain, urging voters to "Send the maverick back to the United States Senate."