John McCain and Jay Carney go at it on CNN (Video)

Initial reaction to President Obama's speech on Wednesday night was, in large part, nonpartisan. But shortly after the speech, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Obama press secretary/newly minted CNN contributor Jay Carney used the occasion to work out some lingering tensions.

The exchange on CNN included plenty of interrupting and accusations of false facts. We would encourage people to watch it.

McCain dominated the first part of the debate, accusing the administration of withdrawing from Iraq too early and of failing to help the moderate Syrian opposition (the Free Syrian Army), with Carney trying to play peace-maker.

Among McCain's comments:

“I’m astounded that Mr. Carney should say that the Free Syrian Army is now stronger.”

“You just didn’t choose to know. I was there in Syria. We knew that – c’mon … your boss is the one that, when the entire national security team wanted to arm and train them, that he turned them down, Mr. Carney…”

“Facts are stubborn things, Mr. Carney. … The fact that they didn’t leave a residual force in Iraq, overruling all of his military advisers is the reason why we’re facing ISIS today."

“You, in your role as a spokesperson, bragged about the fact that the last American combat troop had left Iraq. If we had left a residual force, the situation would not be what we have today.”

Finally given a full chance to respond to the Iraq charge, Carney said:

“It is a mis – basically a whitewash of history to suggest that there weren’t periods of enormous chaos and fighting and bloodshed in Iraq when there were tens of thousands of Americans troops on the ground. That is a fact. And that was true in 2004, it was true in 2007. And it was true even when we had the highest number of U.S. troops on the ground. We cannot – the United States of America – ask our military to be a permanent occupying force in a country like Iraq.”

But it wasn't always this way. In fact, when Carney was a reporter for Time magazine before his stint in the White House, he and McCain, by all accounts, had a pretty good relationship.

Per former McCain adviser John Weaver:

I remember @jaycarney having total access to our 2000 @SenJohnMcCain campaign. No sparring. Just trying to get a cover story. #timeschange

— John Weaver (@JWGOP) September 11, 2014

That relationship, though, seemed to take a turn in 2008, when Carney recounted an angry exchange with McCain in this interview with NBC News:

This post has been updated. It was initially posted at 10:13 p.m. on Wednesday.