A February 4 New York Times article about Republican Sens. John McCain (AZ) and Chuck Hagel (NE), "Mavericks Both, but Different Iraq Paths," asserted that the senators “seemed to revel in rankling the Republican establishment, often infuriating the White House from their side-by-side suites in the Russell Senate Office Building.” The Times further claimed that while McCain is “perhaps the most influential and outspoken supporter in Congress of the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq,” Hagel “seems to have assumed Mr. McCain's former role as their party's leading maverick.” However, McCain's aggressive courting of the conservative base by supporting President Bush's Iraq policy is not, as the Times suggested, the only area in which McCain has given up his purported claim to the “maverick” description.

Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances in which McCain has fallen in line with the Bush administration or the establishment Republican Party on issues large and small.