AS HAS been widely noted, John McCain recently told Newsweek "I never considered myself a maverick." This was belied , of course, by approximately one million campaign advertisements and speeches from 2008 in which John McCain had described himself as exactly that. When Chris Wallace asked Mr McCain this morning about this, showing a mercifully short reel of just about four or so examples, I expected a little straight talk. I, like so many other journalists, once fell in love with a John McCain who used to talk like a normal person, who wouldn't take an embarrassing question about something he had said and pull that stupid politician trick of saying "but the really important question is why our middle class is suffering..." No, I expected something like "yeah, that was obviously a misstatement, but let me tell you what I was thinking..."

Instead, Mr McCain simply re-branded himself, calling himself a "fighter" about 15 times, saying, "Look, when I was fighting against my own president, whether we needed more troops in Iraq, or...spending was completely out of control, then I was a maverick. Now that I'm fighting against this spending administration and this out-of-control and reckless health-care plan, then I'm a partisan," as if some unnamed "they" had been responsible for the "maverick" label. It was embarrassing in the way most American politicians are embarrassing much of the time. Mr McCain didn't used to be like this. In the face of a challenge from his right in the form of the (loopy) J.D. Hayworth, I predict no return of the senator who not only considered himself a maverick but who truly was one, who could sponsor immigration reform with Ted Kennedy or campaign-finance reform with Russ Feingold. Whoever wins Mr McCain's primary, a distinguished senatorial career is already over.

(Photo credit: R.M.)