McCain doesn't like Ike facts

by Will Bunch | Columnist

Published Sept. 26, 2008, 11:32 p.m. ET

SEN. MCCAIN: But there's also the issue of responsibility. You've mentioned President Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and Allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history -- still, to this day, and forever. And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow we've lost that accountability.

I've been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

We've got to start also holding people accountable, and we've got to reward people who succeed.

-- John McCain, presidential debate, Oxford, Miss., Sept. 26, 2008.

This is how John McCain kicked off the first debate, with two big misstatements of fact.

First of all, here is the second and thankfully unnecessary letter that General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of D-Day. As you can probably see, it concludes with the words, "If any blame is found attached to the attempt, it is mine alone." In other words, he never offered to resign. Where McCain got that idea from, I have no idea. Wasn't that remark prepared in advance?

Of course, the funny thing is that he didn't really call for the SEC chairman to resign either. He said that if he were the president, he would fire him -- even though it came out that the president doesn't really have the authority to fire to SEC chairman. He never called for the chairman (Christopher Cox) to resign.

I would agree with one thing, that we've got to start holding people accountable. John McCain, I hold you accountable...for not telling the truth.