McCain and Rumsfeld

Not only should the press stop saying John McCain called for Don Rumsfeld's resignation when he made no such call, they might want to note that he specifically attacked those who were calling for a Rumsfeld resignation. Here he is in November of 2003:

AUDIENCE: My name is Sabah Elbardisi (sp) with Al Jazeera TV. Senator, Mr. Gephardt spoke on Sunday and said that Mr. Rumsfeld is not doing a good job, and he stopped short of calling for his resignation. He also said that the presidents cannot leave the responsibilities for their subordinates. Are you also calling for his resignation? Or what are you calling for?

McCain: No. I think there are certain things that happen with the elections; a president to select his team is certainly a part of that. I certainly would not advocate that.

This came in the context of a speech followed by Q&A in which McCain discussed problems in Iraq at length and didn't mention sectarianism at all and, indeed, he seemed to be unaware of the existence of a Shiite-Sunni split in Iraq.

UPDATE: "Attack" is too strong a word. The point, however, is that people were calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, McCain was asked about those people, and McCain said those people were wrong. For McCain to turn around and characterize that as him calling for Rumsfeld's resignation is highly dishonest.

Comments

That doesn't really sound like an "attack" from McCain.

Posted by right | March 27, 2008 9:28 AM

McCain gets infinite leeway.

If McCain were to claim that on several occasions in that time period that he off-handedly considered, silently in his mind, the possibility that Rumsfeld may have been somewhat mistaken in certain limited manners, the press will allow this to be transformed into a narrative that John McCain fought Donald Rumsfeld with sword in hand on the deck of a pirate ship, and that won't be questioned.

Meanwhile, those Democrats who opposed Rumsfeld all along will still be dismissed as DFH's who were wrong because, as we know, only hawks and specifically pro-Iraq occupation / surge hawks have any opinion which really count.

Posted by El Cid | March 27, 2008 9:54 AM

So it's not enough that McCain condemned Rumsfeld?

This is word-parsing at its best. Most Americans don't dance on the head of a pin like this-- they take the broad strokes (McCain was against Rumsfeld's war strategy) and that's enough for them.

Posted by RH Potfry | March 27, 2008 10:15 AM

But this is 2003? He was much more critical of Rumsfeld later (but still well before Rummy resigned), wasn't he?

Posted by THS | March 27, 2008 10:29 AM

El Cid, very true. My favorite example of that was when he was praised for being an honest maverick when he admitted that he hates the Confederate flag and was only pandering to racists in South Carolina to win the primary there. "I'm a stereotypical politician, but I'm honest about it! Vote for me!"

Posted by Reality Man | March 27, 2008 10:46 AM

Does a day go by when Matt doesn't make an attack on John McCain? And it's usually for silliness.

Posted by Tim K | March 27, 2008 11:08 AM

This post is basically right. McCain said in 2004 that he had "no confidence" in Rumsfeld, which is a pretty harsh condemnation. (The citation to 2003 is pretty misleading in this regard, though.) But when asked specifically about calling for resignation, he always said that it was up to the President.

Calling it "highly dishonest" is a bit of hyperbole.

Posted by Al | March 27, 2008 11:19 AM

McCain is a suck up and a liar. He's too old, senile and stupid to be President.

Posted by merlallen | March 28, 2008 4:32 AM