I looked it up. As a refresher. The word has become so overused -- like 'awesome' -- and unanchored from its original meaning -- like 'conservative' -- I finally sought the assistance of my tattered Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition:

"An independent individual who does not go along with a group or party." (Incidentally, the word is an eponym, coming from a certain Samuel A. Maverick, d.1870, "Am. pioneer who did not brand his calves.")

So for a politician to qualify as one there's a fairly steep threshold to cross; he can't really cross it by just wearing yellow ties when all the other boys are wearing red this year, or by pandering to the same avatars of honest graft, or by voting -- and this one I think is rather key -- along with his party and fellow groupies anywhere from 90 to 95 percent of the time.

It's just pretty hard to honestly call yourself a maverick when you're warmly, cozily sleeping with the presumed enemy virtually every day. But, we're talking about a politician here -- and an awesomely conservative one at that -- so an allegiance to simple, precise language can scarcely be expected.

I did, however, expect more from Dan Balz of the Washington Post, whose political reporting and occasional analyses I have always found to be as reliably balanced and yeomanly detached as could be hoped from any personage soaked for so long in the insider swill of the Washington press corps.

But yesterday, Dan, oh, dear Dan, it was as though we hardly ever knew ye. For this was your analytical lede for the Palin story [1]:

"John McCain's advisers predicted weeks ago that the presumptive Republican nominee would use his national convention week to try to recapture his image as a maverick reformer and shake up the presidential race. He did just that Friday with his surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate."

Needless to admit, the emphases are mine, but only because the words leapt at me with such perplexing force when I first read the lede. Hence I found this somewhat doctored rendition truer.

Dan's piece contains the seeds of its own destruction -- read on, and John's maverick-ness starts fading like the family photo in 'Back to the Future.'

"The decision brings the senator from Arizona immediate dividends with his base and eventually, perhaps, with swing voters."

That, right there, was one of the grosser contradictions of what Mr. Balz had opened with, separated by only one sentence. See definition: "does not go along with a … party."

Perhaps Mr. McCain would take issue with the demands for precise language in this sense: Hey, I'm still a maverick, because technically I wasn't just going along with my party. I was begging it, slobbering at its feet, pleading and whimpering for just one more chance to prove I could be a good, loyal and obedient altar boy. Look, look here, look, I have Jim Dobson's number. I carry it with me. I treasure the goddamn thing.

As for Palin's appeal to swing voters? In that case, if you were looking for a genuinely mavericky choice, just see: Tom Ridge. Because brandishing a far-right Christian conservative before moderate independents is more demented than maverick.

"McCain's hope is that, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) now on the sidelines, Palin can help close a sizable gap with Obama among female voters that threatens to block his path to the White House."

So hurling an insult of nakedly sexualized pandering at female voters now qualifies as a maverick act?

Well, it's derring-do, I'll give it that. And brazen, of course. And a marvelous send-up to tawdry transparency and groveling. But I don't know. Maybe I'm just still pleasantly haunted by the older and more masculine if not gentlemanly James Garner image of Maverickdom to permit "insulting" as a subdefinition.

As well as "reckless."

"McCain," Mr. Balz continued, "has put someone who Democrats argue has even less experience [than Barack Obama] one election and a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Boldness, yes. That's a maverick quality. But for reasons of McCain's age and health already well detailed in hundreds of other opinion venues, I don't need to recount here why his choice was just plain reckless, not bold.

The whopper of contradiction in Balz's piece, though, was this:

"McCain was looking for ways to counter the Democrats' argument that he is merely an extension of President Bush and concluded that he needed a game-changing decision, with all the risks that entailed."

Hello? McCain actually compounded and amplified that Democratic argument with his choice of a far-right Bushian doppelgänger -- and the only game it changed was the one that McCain could have played with independents through a non-ideological selection. But that, he tossed.

Dan, I still love ya, but for the sake of future precision, damn it, please consult your Webster's.