For those Americans who think that George W. Bush's foreign policy bullying has been a disaster and that America needs to find far more productive ways of engaging diplomatically on the international stage,  be forewarned that John McCain isn't just more of the same -- he's quantifiably worse.

The Mississippi Sun Herald published this bombshell yesterday:

Notably mild-mannered Republican Sen. Thad Cochran shocked many earlier this year with comments about John McCain's volatile temper… Elected to the U.S. House in 1972 and then to the Senate in 1978, Cochran, a consummate gentleman, measures his words and his actions carefully. But he said something that surprised many in a Boston Globe article in January about his longtime Senate colleague McCain.

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran told the Globe. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

Pretty strong language -- especially coming from a Republican colleague.  It’s the sort of thing that leaves you wondering what he knows that we don’t.  Well, yesterday we found out at least some part of what led to Sen. Cochran’s disparaging comments at the beginning of the year.

Cochran said he observed McCain engage in a physical confrontation with a Sandinista while participating in a diplomatic mission led by Sen. Bob Dole and others in the fall of 1987. Cochran, McCain - who had won election to the Senate that year - and other members of a bipartisan committee of lawmakers called the Central American Negotiations Observer Group - met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, head of the left-wing political party known as Sandinistas, about tensions in the region.

The atmosphere was tense, as the U.S. was pressing "pretty hard." Cochran noticed a disturbance at the meeting table in a room lined with armed personnel.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla 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."

Wow.

But don't you just have to wonder about the timing of this revelation?  Cochran’s “cold chill down my spine” comment was made during the primary season, before the Republican Party had its “Unity” moment.  Once McCain secured the nomination, Cochran fell into line, claiming that McCain had “turned into the best presidential candidate he could have imagined.”

But if that’s the case, why would he now divulge the fact that McCain physically assaulted a foreign official on a diplomatic mission?  Do you get the feeling that Cochran is trying to walk some sort of fine line between passing as a party loyalist and screaming out a warning to the American public?  Maybe it’s some sort of code:

“John [Hothead] McCain has turned into the best [most erratic] presidential candidate I could have imagined [worried about].  Now McCain [loses his temper] is levelheaded.  [Run for your lives!] Vote for McCain!”

Of course, today McCain denied that the whole event ever occurred. 

"You're talking about 21 years ago? It's simply untrue," McCain said… “I made many trips and had many, many meetings with the Sandinistas. There is nothing there. I must say I did not admire the Sandinistas very much. There was never anything of that nature. It just did not happen."

Hmm... I don’t know about you, but I know which senator I believe.

(h/t to geekesque)