In a DailyKos diary titled Unfit for duty: McCain physically assaulted foreign official in 1987, Kossack Geekesque recounts a tale from Thad Cochran about a meeting held with the Sandanistas in 1987, in which McCain got physical with an associate of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The original story can be found here at MSNBC.com.

Here's the money quote from Cochran:

"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 in an interview with The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. "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."

Cochran, who has complained about McCain's temper before, said only a handful of senators took part in the trip, including former Sen. Steve Symms of Idaho. He said he didn't know who the man McCain grabbed was except that he was an associate of Ortega.

McCain and his campaign are denying the story, naturally - but Cochran's office has held firm:

Asked about the incident, Cochran spokeswoman Margaret McPhillips told The Associated Press: "I think his quotes in the Sun Herald speak on that issue."

Of course, this is the same Thad Cochran who had this to say about John McCain in January, 2008:

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said about McCain by phone. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

John McCain - too hot-tempered to be president, unfit for command.