BODY ARMOR-GATE?

The helicopter ride was uneventful and lasted about seven minutes. Everyone on the helicopters was in body armor except for the White House aides, who wore business suits but no armor. Bartlett had earlier said that POTUS would also not be wearing body armor, though we could not verify that for ourselves.

--pool report on the Bush trip to Baghdad

Five helicopters met the traveling party to ferry them under extraordinary security to the Green Zone several miles away. Fighter jets above provided cover. Inside the helicopter, presidential aides Tony Snow and Dan Bartlett in body armor and helmets. It's not known whether the President was wearing a protective vest.

--Martha Raddatz of ABC News

When the president choppered into the Green Zone from the Baghdad airport, he was wearing twenty-five pounds of body armor.

--Jim Axelrod of CBS News (text and video not available online)

Hands up: Who thinks Bush and the aides made the whole trip without protective gear? Funny, the only people whose hands I see are wingnuts and flightsuit-loving reporters.