McCain’s Rewrite of His Anti-Rumsfeld Script | The Trail | washingtonpost.com By Peter Baker

As he gets closer to the Republican nomination, John McCain has been
trying to balance his unqualified support for the Iraq war by reminding
audiences that he was also a tough critic of the way it was managed
until President Bush finally changed strategies a year ago. In recent
weeks, McCain has gone so far as to tell audiences that he was “the
only one” who called for then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s
resignation.

The only trick is he never did, at least not publicly. The senator
from Arizona was a tough critic of Rumsfeld and more than once declared
that he had no confidence in the Pentagon chief in the two years before
Bush finally dumped him in November 2006. But even as he was
criticizing Rumsfeld, McCain typically stopped short of calling for the
defense secretary to step down on the grounds that it was up to the
president to decide who served in his
Cabinet.

McCain has rewritten that history a couple of times lately. While
campaigning in Fort Myers, Fla., on Jan. 26, he told a crowd: “In the
conflict that we’re in, I’m the only one that said we have to abandon
the Rumsfeld strategy — and Rumsfeld — and adopt a new strategy.”
Four days later during a debate
at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., aired
on CNN, McCain said, “I’m the only one that said that Rumsfeld had to
go.”

A McCain spokesman acknowledged yesterday that was not correct. “He
did not call for his resignation,” said the campaign’s Brian Rogers.