Mccain’s secret trip into Syria reflects his risk-taking tendency

With his secret summit with Syrian rebels last week, U.S. Sen. John McCain demonstrated once again that even at age 76 he doesn’t hesitate to go straight to where the action is, despite risks.

McCain, R-Ariz., got a firsthand, and potentially dangerous, look at the forces waging civil war in the Middle Eastern country. The incursion into Syria was part of a multicountry trip that included Jordan, Turkey, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

Longtime McCain watchers say the episode was classic McCain. The former prisoner of war in Vietnam has made numerous wartime trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, including a 2007 shopping stroll through a Baghdad marketplace to show how security in the area had improved. He drew criticism after it was revealed he had worn military chest armor and was escorted by soldiers and Apache attack helicopters, security precautions he said then-Army Gen. David The Arizona Republic Petraeus insisted he take.

“I’m not notorious for being nervous about going anywhere,” McCain told reporters after the Baghdad market visit. “I’m glad to go most anywhere in the world, under any circumstances.”

Bruce Merrill, a veteran Arizona political scientist and pollster who has followed McCain’s political career from the start, said he believes unpredictability and risk-taking are intrinsic parts of McCain’s personality.

“The guy is obviously resilient and tough — he survived a prisoner-ofwar camp,” Merrill said. “I just think he likes to push things.” Robert Timberg, a former

journalist and McCain biographer, said McCain has always appeared to enjoy surprising people.

“With McCain, it’s not just emotional — I think it may be hormonal — but he likes to do stuff,” Timberg said. “He likes to be part of the action, and he doesn’t like to sit around and twiddle his thumbs. When he sees something where he thinks he can make a difference, it becomes an almost irresistible urge.” In other developments: » McCain’s surprise appearance in Syria was the talk of Twitter on Memorial Day. “Nothing quite like finding out via twitter that my father secretly snuck into Syria and met with rebel leaders,” daughter Meghan McCain tweeted. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a friend of McCain’s, tweeted some macabre humor: “If he doesn’t make it back calling dibs on his office.”

» U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., was one of 10 House members who wrote to Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to urge him to change the National Football League team’s “derogatory, demeaning and offensive” name. “Native Americans throughout the country consider the term ‘redskin’ a racial, derogatory slur akin to the ‘N-word’ among African Americans or the ‘W-word’ among Latinos,” they wrote.

» Andrew Wilder, who was former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl’s longtime communications director, has a new job as the Arizona Department of Corrections’ director of communications. Wilder most recently was the spokesman for Republican Jeff Flake’s 2012 Senate campaign.