Firebrand?

Like the term "Maverick" this phrase always jumps out at me when I read it in a news piece.  To whom was it applied today?

Lynne F. Stewart, the firebrand lawyer known for defending unsavory criminals, now faces the possibility of living out her life like many of them, in maximum-security lockdown in a federal prison.

Firebrand? How about traitorous scum? Or doesn't trip off the tongue? Has the MSM ever met a traitorous weaselsnake they didn't love?

I'm not arguing about the actual word, the definition is 100% correct.  I am arguing about what I perceive as the colloquial usage which I think boils down to "REBEL!"  or "SO COOL!" in the same way the Maverick has come to mean "one who stabs the Republican party in the back."

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