Former (my bad, Lott is the former MS Senator) GOP Senator Thad Cochran, who hates John McCain, knows that McCain has a reputation as a hothead. So here he is telling an uncomplimentary story that plays to the idea McCain is a hothead who has no control of his temper:

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said he saw McCain, who has a reputation for being hot tempered, rough up an Ortega associate during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan. . . .

"I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever . . . I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, 'Good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission.' I don't know what had happened to provoke John, but he obviously got mad at the guy ... and he just reached over there and snatched ... him."

Time for the GOP to cut Cochran loose. More . ..

Imagine if Clark had said McCain is "[n]ot the most stable personality in the public arena", as Roger L. Simon wrote [about Gen Clark, added for those who thought Simon said it about McCain]. All hell would have broken loose. Perhaps Cochran is relying on the old standby, IOKIYAR. Certainly Glenn Reynolds has no qualms besmirching the military service of Wes Clark. I am not outraged. I just think he is wrong. But by the new GOP rule, perhaps they should be.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only