Paul Bremer, the former envoy to Iraq, has been among the more prominent architects of the Iraq War to suddenly reemerge all over the nation's televisions in the wake of that country's current crisis. On Monday night, he received one of his tougher grillings about his actions during the war from CNN's Erin Burnett.
Not booking one of the most vocal defenders of the war was apparently not an option, so instead, Burnett asked, "A lot of people are watching you right now and they're —they're hearing you give your ideas of what to do. And they're saying, 'but aren't you the guy who got us in this mess?'" (Another question might have been, "If you're the one who got us into this mess, why are you on television right now?")
Bremer's response was essentially to say that there was nothing wrong with anything he'd done. Burnett pressed him admirably on this point.
As the conversation got more awkward, Bremer did what so many peeved guests before him have done: tried to lecture his interviewer about how the segment should be going.
"Usually the system goes, you ask a question, the guest answers is, then you ask your next question," he snapped.
"I felt like I had given you plenty of time on the prior question," Burnett replied. "So as long as you finish it, please answer the one I just asked."