Increasingly, it looks like the “maverick” label that John McCain has placed on himself is out-of-date.

McCain has become a primary critic of Barack Obama’s Presidency and much of the criticism is directed at Obama’s “change.”

“It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people is that we would sit down together,” said McCain to CNN’s John King.

Yet, that is what Obama has done, at least in the area of partisan politics. Obama conferred with Republican leaders of the House of Representatives about his stimulus package, tried to appoint an unprecedented three Republicans to his cabinet and has included Republicans to several White House social gatherings.

The three Republican Senators who voted for the stimulus package, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, received incredible pressure from Republicans not to align with Democrats. Newly elected Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao, from a heavily Democratic Louisiana district, was also dissuaded from voting independently. Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who publicly praised the stimulus deal, has been heavily criticized as well.

True bipartisanship is never going to come. Plus, the Democrats have also been guilty of much of the same heavy-handed pressure in the past. Hopefully, Obama sticks with his inclusive nature despite the stiff-arms from Republicans and criticism from Democrats who think he is wasting his time.

Towards the end of that CNN interview, McCain made an interesting comment:

“I’m not saying that we did things different. But Americans want us to do things differently, and they want us to work together.”

Yeh, John, everyone wants to talk about working together, but no one wants to listen.