Argument starts around 1:00. At 4:30 Hasselbeck snipes at him about something else.

Political commentator Bill Maher was a guest on The View yesterday, during which he got in an ongoing, uncomfortable exchange with cohost and resident conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck took offense at a tasteless remark that Maher made at her expense on his HBO show in February, where he said that we should send Hasselbeck to Egypt in exchange for CNN correspondent Lara Logan. That would have been despicable, considering that Logan was sexually assaulted by a mob. However, Maher said that over a week before any of that was known at all. On The View, Hasselbeck confronted Maher about it but she didn’t mention at all that he said it prior to when it was known that Logan had been raped.

On the Feb. 4 episode of ‘Real Time,’ as the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square were unfolding, Maher made the following joke about Logan and Hasselbeck. “New rule: now that Hosni Mubarak has released Lara Logan, he must put her intrepid hotness on a plane immediately. In exchange, we will send Elisabeth Hasselbeck.” Over a week later, on Feb. 15, the public would learn that Logan had suffered a brutal sexual assault on Feb. 11 in Tahrir Square. When Maher told the joke, he couldn’t have known that Logan had been raped.

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Hasselbeck was none too pleased with a joke Maher made at her expense last February, in which he suggested sending her to Egypt in exchange for CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, who’d been assaulted while covering that country’s democratic uprising.

“The View” co-host told Maher she didn’t find his joke to be funny, and he explained that it wasn’t meant as a personal attack on her.

But things got even more contentious from there.

“Would you say that again?” asked Hasselbeck.

Maher replied, “If I had a crystal ball and knew I was coming here and had to spend my whole segment talking about it, no.”

When Hasselbeck continued to question Maher about his joke, Barbara Walters interceded, saying, “We’re done, can we move on?”

After the group began to talk politics, Hasselbeck sarcastically said to Maher, “Wow, I actually feel smarter sitting next to you.”

To which he replied, “Really? I feel like I’m in high school sitting next to you.”

[From Gossip Cop, ONTD]

Maher should have apologized and said that he was very sorry to have said that, especially in light of what happened to Logan. (Which again he did not know about at all when he made those comments.) Hasselbeck should have clarified that the remarks were made before it was known that Logan was assaulted. She was too aggressive toward him about it, and he got defensive instead. He handled himself well, although he should have emphasized that he said those things well before Logan’s story was known. Also, Hasselbeck was way too snotty and rude toward him later in the show, when he was commenting on Herman Cain and Rick Perry’s most recent gaffes. She shouldn’t have been sitting right next to him because all she did was snipe back at whatever he said. It was juvenile, Maher called it.