C with classes originally meant non oo c++. It was a common crticism from a time when not being oo was considered a defect rather than a design decision on which paradigm fit your problem space. It would be like a haskell zealot saying someone's clojure was "java with lambdas" to imply it was imperative. Implying imperative code was always inferior.

All that said, some parts of moder c++ like move semantics do really cut down on defects. People who go out of their way to use *all* of the new toys create codebases that make my teeth itch.