The Last Maverick

With all due respect to Sarah Palin and John McCain, I think it would be nice for the world to know who original mavericks were.

The Mavericks were a family of South Texas progressives who stood up for the little man.  One signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, one started the Boston Massacre, and  another (Maury Maverick) beat the San Antonio political machine to become mayor.  He stood up for small businesses and Mexican-Americans in Depression-era Texas.  His son, Maury Maverick Jr. fought against McCarthyism in the Texas House of Representatives (killing his political future) and then for civil rights and freedom of speech in his long career as a lawyer.  As a newspaper columnist, he defended the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Five years ago, Maury Maverick, Jr. died in San Antonio of kidney failure after filing his last newspaper column on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.  He, unlike most politicians and media talking heads, opposed it from the outset unlike John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Joe Biden and like Barack Obama.

Have McCain and Palin truly stood up for the little man here and abroad, from Vietnam to Iraq?  They haven’t, and the Maverick family is duly upset.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are unworthy of the title.  So the next time they call themselves “mavericks,” take a shot and light up your bingo board and reminisce about the heroes that were the true Mavericks.