Maverick? What maverick?

John McCain. Straight talker. Maverick. His own man. That’s what we love about him, right? That’s what Limbaugh hates about him, right? For instance, he’s not afraid to take a bold, balanced ––albeit, unpopular–– position on illegal immigration. Again, he breaks from the pack and takes a brave, outspoken and biographically-consistent position against torture. And against his party. He stands his ground. He tells it like it is. Well… apparently, Johnny has finally drunk the GOP Kool-Aid. This week, he did a complete one-eighty on his position against torture and voted against the Senate torture bill. This, only days after his pansy-pants promise to the GOP base that he will now be revising his unpopular position on immigration. Uh, huhhh. So, that thing that we love about John McCain? Yeah. Pretty much over. Hey, more independents for Barack, right?

Reality Check

He’s looking to Florida to put him back in the game. He is looking at a state rich in Latino voters to put him back on the map. So Rudy Giuliani has done a most logical thing. He has launched a series of Spanish-language TV commercials. That’s right, the same guy advocating that no one be allowed U.S. citizenship without demonstrated fluency in English. Ironic? Ai yi yi yi! Which illustrates the complexities of this hot potato immigration issue. It seems we live in a nation where it is alright for non-citizen Latinos to join the U.S. Marines and die for our country. But if you come across the border and take the jobs we don’t want to do, at wages we refuse to be paid; if you send your kids to our taxpayer-funded public schools; and if you come here speaking another language like our German, Polish, Swedish and Russian ancestors did; Then we get bent out of shape. Then, candidates start saying patently unamerican things like you can’t be a citizen unless you speak, read and write the Queen’s English. But, suddenly, reality sinks in; the hardliners come down from their high horses and become as pragmatic as a Texas restaurant owner or an Arizona homebuilder. These same tough-talking politicians go out and make themselves a Spanish-language TV commercial: Senor Giuliani es muy macho.