February 2011
January 2011
“The only thing that matters is family.”
—Joe Kennedy
Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel: hypothetical college buddies!
- Rachel: Richard, just let me ask you one last question and then I hope you can get some sleep. I know that you and I went to college in the same place at the same time, although we didn't hang out at that time. As soon as you left college, you moved to Cairo and you lived there for years.
- Richard: Why'd you have to add that in, that we didn't hang out? What's all that about?
- Rachel: Because actually I was super unpleasant in college and I don't want you to be damned with my reputation. You've always been a charmer. Me, not so much.
- Richard: All right, we were there, although you didn't want to talk to me. That's fine.
- Rachel: That's fine. Let's say it was that way.
- Richard: Just so that's public.
- Rachel: But after we both left college without speaking to each other, you moved to Cairo and lived in Cairo for years. That's where you learned Arabic and it's where you got your first education in the Middle East. Being back there now, how different is it from the mid '90s and how, just personally, how significant does this feel?
- Richard: It feels incredibly significant. It's been something that I've been thinking about all day, really. I lived here right after I never spoke to you in college and I came here and I had lived on very little money, spending most of my time weeping that you wouldn't talk to me.
