Mike DeWine took it upon himself to blast Defense Secretary Rumsfeld while chatting with far left online publication Salon. "Rumsfeld has made some very serious mistakes," DeWine declared, repeating his verdict for emphasis. "Very serious mistakes. I think history will judge him very harshly." Just to make sure that I was really hearing one of the harshest attacks yet on Rumsfeld by a Republican senator, I asked, "Which mistakes?" DeWine, who has never repented his 2002 vote for the Iraq war, gave me a what-planet-are-you-on look before responding, "Clearly not enough troops going in [to Iraq]. That was the biggest mistake. And a lot of mistakes would be covered under that." To paraphrase, "I came here to make blanket statements about the unpopular (according to left wing media polls) Secretary of Defense. Please don't ask me to be specific, or it may alienate my conservative base that is mostly unaware of my horrible tax and spend record as a US Senator." Bill Pierce has the story. From BizzyBlog: Not even I expected Mike DeWine to be below 50%. That gave him the lowest Republican rating other than the two Mainers (Snowe had 35% and Collins 40%) and Lincoln “Chapstick” Chafee (33%). Even Arlen Specter at 50% did slightly better than DeWine. This is truly stunning to me... imagine this... just visualize Mike DeWine having a worse record in this category than Snowe, Collins, Chafee, and Specter. As it was for Biz, this was quite a revelation for me. It's disheartening... when I was at Wright State, I helped work on DeWine's campaign. Many conservatives thought we had scored a real winner in the Senate, but I suppose time, money, and power change everything. Dewine and gas prices, from Nix.