Say Anything Blog

Leave it to the media to paint these assertions from Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) as a bad thing.

“McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table, and I don’t know what attracted my attention,” Cochran said. “But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and 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.”

No punches were thrown, and the two sat back down, he said. The man, who appeared to be ruffled after the confrontation, was an associate of Ortega’s, but Cochran said he was unsure of his identity.

McCain, the venerable war hero who still bears the scars and serious physical disabilities of being tortured by Vietnamese socialists, threatening to throw around a Nicaraguan socialist during a diplomatic meeting?

That’s almost enough to make me want to vote for the man right now.

Almost, and actually McCain’s disabilities make Cochran’s version of this story seem unlikely.  After all, it’s doubtful that a man who can’t lift his arms over his head was picking people up by their shirts.  But even so, the idea of a political leader willing to personally rough up thugs like the Sandinistas is appealing.