It's not like we don't have our own numerous issues with Maureen Dowd, but kicking her off the press plane? That's just not okay. But, via Politico, it looks like that's exactly what former straight-talker, press-lover, current campaign-suspender John McCain recently did.

Apparently it all started back on Aug 30 (two days after the Palin announcement was made) when, after covering a McCain-Palin rally, MoDo (whose go-go boots column didn't run until the next day) was banned(!) from the press plane. Says Dowd:

I had had a great relationship with John McCain for 16 years, through columns he liked and didn't like. So at first I thought it was a mistake and doublechecked with the press office. They said I was banned from both planes for 'the foreseeable future.' Then [McCain spokeswoman] Nicole Wallace was gloating about it to reporters on the Palin plane," Dowd wrote in an email. It was disappointing because I didn't think John McCain would ever be as dismissive of the First Amendment as Dick Cheney.