"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."
[...] He recalled a time during Bill Clinton's presidency, when Clinton and his wife, the first lady, both had events in New York City, each traveling with large security caravans. "The island of Manhattan was gridlocked," he recalled.
[...] "you don't need 50 cars and SUV's full of people driving along, stopping traffic."
Jesus. What's next with these fucking idiots? "I'm gonna wear me some six-shooters, and Allah help Osama if he crosses my path while I'm out fightin' crime."
Nice how he works that little partisan "those Clinton Pussies" barb in there, huh? Like Bush just rides his mountain bike around town when he comes to NYC...
I lived in New York during Presidential visits, and yeah, it was a pain—for about twenty minutes while the motorcade flew up the FDR. Better to have, as McCain waxes, "a car with tinted glass, and maybe one secret service guy with you" caught in a traffic jam?
Sorry, but you have a bit of a responsibility to the country to try and stay alive.
Oh, and Senator? Would you care to explain how this fits in with your "four helicopter gunships and a battalion of troops" escort in that "safe" Baghdad marketplace...
[h/t: 'Bagger]
