Last year I raised my eyebrows at the price Washington is paying for a new fleet of helicopters for carting around POTUS, or the President of the United States. At Barack Obama's fiscal responsibility summit today, Senator John McCain, who has a long record of being a budgetary hawk as well as a military one, took up the issue.
Kudos to McCain. This is the first time I can recall any significant American political player raising (albeit in good humour) the astronomical cost of housing, transporting and protecting US presidents in the manner to which they've grown accustomed. And kudos to Obama for the lightness of his touch in response: somehow he comes out of the exchange looking just as virtuous as McCain (not that he's likely to give up Marine One any time soon).
