More on the Marvelous Maverick

The New York Times' subscription wall seems to have a breech today, because Paul Krugman's column is accessible, at least it was a few minutes ago: The Right's Man 03/13/06. Krugman points out how conservative the legendary Maverick really is:

The bottom line is that Mr. McCain isn't a moderate; he's a man of the hard right. How far right? A statistical analysis of Mr. McCain's recent voting record, available at www.voteview.com, ranks him as the Senate's third most conservative member. [Select "Analyses of Recent Politics" from the left sidebar and then select "109th Senate Rank Ordering"; only Senator's Kyl, also from Arizona, and Sununu of New Hampshire rank more conservative in that ranking.]

What about Mr. McCain's reputation as a maverick? This comes from the fact that every now and then he seems to declare his independence from the Bush administration, as he did in pushing through his anti-torture bill.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Guantánamo. President Bush, when signing the bill, appended a statement that in effect said that he was free to disregard the law whenever he chose. Mr. McCain protested, but there are apparently no hard feelings: at the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference he effusively praised Mr. Bush.

And I'm sorry to say that this is typical of Mr. McCain. Every once in a while he makes headlines by apparently defying Mr. Bush, but he always returns to the fold, even if the abuses he railed against continue unabated.

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