With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Senator recounts McCain dustup with the Sandinistas

Notably mild-mannered Republican Sen. Thad Cochran shocked many earlier this year with comments about John McCain's volatile temper, but has since mended fences with the GOP presidential nominee.

But Cochran told the Sun Herald this week that he witnessed a confrontation between McCain and a Sandinista rebel decades ago that shocked him when McCain "got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and then to the U.S. Senate in 1978, Cochran, a consummate gentleman, measures his words and his actions carefully, a necessity for political staying power. But he said something that surprised many in a Boston Globe article this past January about his longtime Senate colleague McCain.
Read entire article at McClatchy