One day after committing a rather egregious mistake in the form of either failing to know who the leader of Spain was or effectively snubbing him, John McCain had another doozy today, claiming a power he wouldn't have as President. The good folks at ABC News have the story.

At a joint rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Thursday, Republican John McCain slammed the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for being "asleep at the switch" saying that if he were president, he would fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the SEC since 2005 and a former Republican congressman.

[...]

But while the president nominates and the Senate confirms the SEC chair, a commissioner of an independent regulatory commission cannot be removed by the president.

From time to time, presidents have attempted to remove commissioners who have proven "uncooperative." However, the courts have general upheld the independence of commissioners. In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission and the Supreme Court ruled the president acted unconstitutionally.

Just as was the case with the Spain flap yesterday, the McCain campaign resorted to a tortured explanation as to how this did not constitute yet another embarrassing gaffe by the Republican nominee. According to the campaign, at least one SEC Commissioner has resigned when it became clear that he did not enjoy the backing of the incumbent administration. But there is a real difference between an independent commissioner deciding to bite the bullet and the President firing said commissioner -- that's exactly what Humphrey's Executor v. United States, the Supreme Court case alluded to by ABC News, was about. Color me unconvinced. This sure sounds like yet another example of McCain prattling off on a topic he didn't know about and then having to come up with a hasty explanation after the fact. This a successful presidential campaign does not make.