McCain: Elizabeth Edwards claim ‘a cheap shot’

During a somewhat testy interview with George Stephanopoulos, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that Elizabeth Edwards took a “cheap shot” at him by claiming that the presidential candidate had government healthcare his whole life.

Stephanopoulos, noting Edwards’ recent comments about McCain in The Wall Street Journal, said, “Her point is why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of healthcare that members of Congress get and members of the military get?”

{mosads}A smiling McCain said, “It’s a cheap shot but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good healthcare, I had it from another government. Look, I know what it’s like not to have healthcare.” McCain was referring to the five-and-a-half years he spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Later, in describing his differences with Democrats on healthcare, he added, “in all due respect to Elizabeth Edwards,” who has cancer.

McCain appeared irked at times with the tenor of Stephanopoulos’s questions as the two men interrupted each other on several occasions. When the “This Week” host repeatedly challenged whether Congress would agree to McCain’s plan to significantly cut the size of the government, the senator noted his critics and suggested Stephanopoulos was one of them “by the tenor of your questions.”

At the end of the interview when Stephanopoulos said time was running out, a laughing McCain said, “Oh no!”

However, the Arizona senator – whose temper was the focus of a front-page Washington Post article Sunday – never raised his voice and smiled throughout the interview.

McCain indicated that his age will not be a major issue on the campaign trail, noting that he answered those questions by besting his GOP primary opponents.

Ending the interview, Stephanopoulos said, “You were vigorous today.”

Stephanopoulos and his ABC colleague Charles Gibson attracted criticism earlier this week for what some said were overly aggressive and impertinent questions directed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Others defended the journalists, saying the criticism was unjust.

McCain jumped on one of the issues raised at that debate, slamming Obama for his association with former domestic terrorist William Ayers.

While saying that he did not question the Illinois senator’s patriotism, McCain strongly criticized Obama for comparing “an unrepentant terrorist” with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). During the debate, the Democratic frontrunner had asserted that he should no more have to be associated with some of Ayers’s views than those of Coburn’s, who has worked with Obama on some Senate issues but is also one of the chamber’s most conservative members.

“It’s very insulting to a great man, a great doctor, a great humanitarian, to compare him with a guy who says, after 2001, ‘I wish we had bombed more,’” McCain said, adding that Obama’s stance “borders on outrage.”