This is Aaron Brown and CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre last night (manual transcript, emphasis added):
BROWN: [...] I said in introducing you that everything seems political to people these days. I know this will be perceived as a political question; it's not meant that way. To what extent does the fact that there are 135,000 troops in Iraq and troops in Afghanistan--to what extent, if any, impact the ability of the military, the Pentagon, to respond to this crisis?
McINTYRE: [...] And as to your question about political--I talked to a lot of people at the Pentagon today who are very frustrated about the fact that the perception is being created that the military didn't move fast enough. And they did see it somewhat as political. They thought that part of the motivation was for critics of the administration to make the President look bad.
Ha-ha-ha. Real Victim One: President Bush. Apparently he had a brilliant plan
all ready to go--and it would have worked, too, if it hadn't have been for those meddling critics.
McINTYRE [continuing directly]: And they seemed to question the motives of some of our reporters who are--and hearing these stories from, uh, the victims about why they have so much sympathy for the victims and not as much sympathy for, uh, the challenges that the government's been, uh, met in meeting this challenge. And I have to say, thinking about that, it doesn't really seem all that unusual that you would tend to, uh, understand the plight of the victims a little more than the bureaucrats in Washington.
BROWN: Yeah, um, em--I uh--the aver--uh. I'm glad you--I'm glad you told us that. And they have every right to believe the way they believe and think the way they think. But, uh, you've got people who've been living as refugees. It is not hard to understand why our first heartbeat goes in their direction. We'll worry about the bureaucrats later. Jamie, thank you. That's a tough beat you got.
Yes, dear reader, it seems the
other real victims are, in fact, government bureaucrats. "Yeah, um, em--I uh--the aver--uh," indeed.