MRC’s Geoff Dickens has transcribed the Laura Bush interview from the Today show. Katie Couric suggested that it’s a matter of opinion whether the majority of American troops are abusive to Muslims: “In your view, is the administration holding the people who are doing these things, and perhaps they are in the minority as you say, but do you think they’re being held sufficiently accountable?”
Mrs. Bush took exception to Katie’s P-word: “Yes I do. I mean there’s investigations going on the people are being held accountable and it’s not ‘perhaps in the minority.’ We know it’s very, very few people. A handful of people. We know that overall our troops are serving with distinction. They’re very helpful to the people where they are. They’re building schools, they’re refurbishing schools. They’re drilling well waters so that villages have clean water. They’re helping both Afghanistan and Iraq as they build they’re countries. They’re training troops in Iraq and policemen there.”
Here’s where the First Lady suggested American media coverage of prison abuse was extreme: “So the, the sad news is that the coverage is so extreme of a handful of really, really bad cases. And the American people are sick about it. They don’t want people around the world to have an image of Americans like that, because that’s not the way Americans really are. And it’s certainly not the way our troops, overall, serve anywhere around the world.”