Marvelous Maverick McCain's standard for Republican Congressional leadership

From Look Who's Talking About Making a Comeback in the Senate by Sherly Gay Stolberg New York Times 11/27/05:

During an appearance last weekend at the University of Mississippi, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, predicted that Mr. Lott would become Republican leader again, adding, "I will tell anyone that of all the majority leaders we've had in the United States Senate, I believe that Trent Lott was the finest leader we've had."

Yep, that's the bold Maverick McCain.

Stolberg reminds us why the, uh, gentleman from Mississippi is no longer Senate Republican leader - at least for now:

Mr. Lott's downfall as Republican leader stemmed from his comments at a 100th-birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond, the since-deceased Republican senator from South Carolina who in 1948 ran for president as a segregationist. Mississippi voted for Mr. Thurmond, and Mr. Lott said if the rest of the country had done so, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."