Most people agree that it’s unattractive to try to stop a campusspeaker–however odious–who comes simply to present a point of view.But the choice of commencement speaker is a different matter, making astatement about the school’s identity, and about the aspirations of thegraduates.

I didn’t attend my own graduation from the University of Michigan,which was addressed by then-president Bush the First, who now seems aharmless granola-nut compared to Senator John “Stop Me Before I Nuke North Korea” McCain,this year’s scheduled commencement speaker at the New School, an institution withprogressive traditions. Founded by the likes of John Dewey andThorstein Veblen, the New School remains, even with disgusting warcriminal and union-buster Bob Kerrey at the helm, a hotbed of seriousleftish thinking. So it’s delightful to see New School students protesting McCain’s upcoming speech .

Fewer and fewer members of the reality-based community still considerpresidential contender McCain a “maverick,” but some members of thenews media are holdouts. Yesterday’s New York Times story giddily dubshim an “iconoclast.” Some recovering McCain liberals have beenobserving with alarm that–surprise, surprise–in preparation for 2008,McCain is buddying up to social conservatives like Jerry Falwell. Thefact is, his “maverick” schtick was always bogus; he’s a genuineright-winger, deeply opposed to abortion rights and in favor ofprivatizing Social Security. Check out Bob Geiger’s recent debunking of McCainmythology.

My dictionary defines the word “maverick” thus: “someone who holdsindependent views and who refuses to conform to the accepted orthodoxthinking on a subject.” Yet for some reason, the word is always used todescribe Republicans who have trivial, though dramatically rendered,disagreements with other Republicans. So can we agree, from now on,that anyone who uses words like “maverick” and “iconoclast” to describemainstream conservatives like John McCain is a lazy hack?