Setting the record straight on McCain and Rummy.

Crooks and Liars:

On the March 5 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer asked about Sen. John McCain: “[C]an he disassociate himself … distance himself from the president?” After CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it would be “[t]otally impossible,” CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger responded: “[B]ut on the war, McCain has said over and over again, you know, ‘I would have fired [former Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld.’ ”

When Toobin interrupted, asking: “Did he call for Rumsfeld to be fired?” Blitzer said “Yes” and Borger agreed, saying: “He did. He did.”

Despite Toobin’s further protestations, Borger said of McCain’s purported call for Rumsfeld to be fired: “[H]e called for him to be fired while — in the Senate,” “Yeah. Oh, absolutely,” “No, he did,” and “[H]e said I think Rumsfeld ought to be fired, you know, a long time ago. Yeah.”