John McCain -- is Sarah Palin the Choice a True "Maverick" Would Make?

When I was four, my parents owned two Ford Mavericks. One was a red basic model, the other was a souped up, tricked out, "Grabber" in a nice 70's yellow. After a few months it became clear that the basic model was a great little car, lasting my parents for years until they sold it. The "Grabber" turned out to be a piece of garbage, as lemony as its color.

John McCain has proclaimed himself a "maverick", a man who isn't beholden to his party or an ideology. He's a free thinker, a man who isn't afraid to do what he feels needs to be done. Indeed, McCain saw himself the victim of the far right wing of his party when George W. Bush's campaign, under the leadership of the evil puppet master Karl Rove, used a racist push poll to plant the seed that McCain had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock.

With this in mind, I expected that McCain would find a running mate that would go against the typical neoconservative grain. Surely a man with as much political experience and as many friends as McCain would be able to find a capable running mate. Many names were bandied about. Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney, and even former Democrat, Joe Lieberman were all names mentioned. Some speculated that McCain might choose a female politician or business leader such as Condi Rice, Elizabeth Dole, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, or former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.

Instead, this "maverick" decided to make a decision right out of the Karl Rove playbook. Instead of finding a running mate who was the opposite of George W. Bush, the man who helped mire us in an economic and foreign relations nightmare, he chose his female equivalent.

Sarah Palin is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the right.

Sarah Palin feels that global warming doesn't exist, even though the day she gave her allegedly brilliant speech, a 19 square mile ice sheet was breaking free in Canada.

Sarah Palin is against a woman's right to choose and birth control, leading to a situation in her own family where she expects her now pregnant daughter to marry her self-proclaimed redneck boyfriend.

Sarah Palin is a bully who wishes to surround herself by "yes" men by pushing out anyone who disagrees with her.

Sarah Palin is a political lightweight who has progressed not through progressive ideas or hard work, but rather an impression of "likability."

Sarah Palin is anti-intellectual and anti-science, believing that scientists are dead wrong about the origins of the Earth and life, wrong about climate change, wrong about endangered species, and wrong about stem-cell research.

Sarah Palin is against rape victims, believing they should not be allowed to have an abortion and allowing her city to charge victims for their own rape kits used during the investigation of the crime.

Sarah Palin is not above using God as justification for unpopular issues, asking to pray that Iraq was God's plan and indicating she thought God wanted a new pipeline in Alaska.

Sarah Palin may be for banning books, given her desire to get rid of a librarian who had told Palin many times that she was against banning books.

Sarah Palin proclaims she's a fiscal conservative, but has no issue with having the taxpayer foot the bill for transporting her family throughout Alaska and the country so they can be with her.

Sarah Palin is so inexperienced and apparently politically inept that, like George W. Bush, she's being shielded from talking to the media, lest she make a huge mistake that could show what a bad choice she is.

In short, Sarah Palin is the exact opposite of the choice that a truly maverick politician should make. Instead of choosing someone that would help bring the change that John McCain keeps saying he's for, Sarah Palin represents the "more of the same" that Obama and Biden keep talking about.

So what do the two Ford Mavericks at the beginning of the story have to do with John McCain? Years ago I used to see John as the red Maverick: decent, reliable, and steady. Now I see John as the other Maverick: placing flash over substance and ultimately being unreliable and above all..... yellow.