AT A RALLY in Iowa on Thursday, John McCain said that Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), should be fired. “Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch,” McCain said. “The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were President today, I would fire him.”

Within hours, McCain’s statement came under fire. His critics focused less on his assignment of blame than on his proposed remedy: as ABC’s Jake Tapper put it, “the president does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman.” The regular chorus of McCain critics quickly echoed the refrain. Citing Tapper, a blogger for The Atlantic wrote that although the president could pressure the SEC chairman to quit, he “still couldn’t ‘fire’ him.”