Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain's communications director wrote this morning to say that the excerpt I posted yesterday on the senator's heated exchange with an Egyptian TV interviewer stopped before showing that McCain finally was allowed to answer his question and that the interview went on for several more minutes.
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers asked me to post this longer clip of the full interview, which does indeed show a longer exchange, but not a less hostile one. The interviewer and the lawmaker sparred on Syria, U.S. aid to Egypt, Iraq, Islamists and pretty much every other topic broached.
At one point the interviewer, Amr Adeeb, asks McCain whether he knows how unpopular he is in Egypt. Later, McCain responds to one of Adeeb's questions by saying, "Your question is so ridiculous that it doesn't deserve an answer."
Interspersed are cameo mentions of Bush, Saddam, Hitler, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other pleasantries.
The barbs go on until the end, when McCain remarks that it's certainly been a "spirited and engaging interview," and Adeeb chalks up his own interruptions to a "bad habit."
Nevertheless, McCain accepts Adeeb's invitation to come back on the show, albeit with one condition: "Promise next time, you'll let me finish my sentence."