John McCain: So Tough, He Doesn't Need The Secret Service

Note:  see update at the end.  He changed his mind.  Well, he got some free press to help his "straight-talkin' tough guy, just like Dubya" image take hold.

Maybe he'll start clearing brush next.

It could be a campaign ad.  "I'm John McCain.  I'm badass.  I don't need Secret Service protection."

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) may be the presumptive GOP nominee for president, but, by his own wishes, he is not being protected by the Secret Service.

"He has not requested protection," Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told a congressional subcommittee this morning. "We have no involvement at this point."

In opting not to take the protection, McCain is following through on plans he outlined to reporters late last year on his Straight Talk Express campaign bus.

Last November, McCain said:

"It's my intention, if we win this nomination, to reject Secret Service," he said during one of his many conversations with reporters on his Straight Talk Express this weekend. "Why do I need it?"

He adds: "The day that the Secret Service can assure me that if we're driving in the motorcade and there's a guy in a rooftop with a rifle, that they can stop that guy, then I'll say fine. But the day they tell me, 'well, we can't guarantee it,' then fine, I'll take my chances."

McCain rejected Secret Service protection in 2000, after winning the New Hampshire primary. But he wants to go further, rejecting the massive security apparatus should he become president.

"It's the inconvenience," McCain said. "It's the inconvenience it causes people. It's a waste of the taxpayers money. It's just everything I don't like."

Read the whole thing.  It's just bewildering.  "It's a waste of taxpayers money,".  Well, how about the Iraq War?

Speaking of which, if McCain is so tough, why'd he need all that protection when he took his famous stroll in Baghdad last year?

NBC’s Nightly News provided further details about McCain’s one-hour guided tour. He was accompanied by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead." Still photographs provided by the military to NBC News seemed to show McCain wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

This is a guy who's running for Commander-in-Chief of the United States.  This is the guy who'll have access to "The Football".  This is the guy who is supposed to have good judgment.

There's really nothing much more to say.

Update: Looks like he changed his mind.  I assume he'll stick with that decision.