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September 02, 2003

Prescient or Just Plain Nuts? An indulgent Burnt Orange "Aha!"

By Jim Dallas

A few weeks ago, I posted about the danger of making false comparisons between murder rates in Houston and casualty rates in Iraq:

... the folks who got us into this misbegotten Iraqi war will make bold pronouncements like "our boys are safer in Baghdad than they are in America!" And use that line as both an apology for hawk blunders as well as a siren call for even-tougher measures in the War on Crime at home.

This week, the fine folks over at Buzzflash caught Fox News "journalist" Brit Hume employing this very tactic, earning him the number 3 spot on this week's "Top Ten Conservative Idiots" list on Democratic Underground:

Fox News anchor Brit Hume was spotted recently telling his viewers in an oh-so-fair-and-balanced way that American soldiers are less likely to be murdered in Iraq than regular Americans living in California. See? Our troops are perfectly safe! So how does Mr. Hume come to this conclusion? Why, like any fair-and-balanced journalist should - in a thoroughly scientific, common sense manner. Here's Brit's theory: since Iraq is "roughly the same geographical size" as California, and 6.6 Americans are murdered every day in California compared to 1.7 Americans in Iraq, isn't it obvious that Americans are safer in Iraq? Well sure, if you use the completely bogus "land area" argument that conservatives like to trot out at disturbingly regular intervals (see the right-wing map that claims Bush won the 2000 election by a landslide). However, since there are 38 million Americans in California and only 170,000 in Iraq, it turns out that Americans are actually 66 times more likely to die in Iraq. It's no surprise that Fox News (new motto: Wholly Without Merit) wants to downplay the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq - after all, they and their viewers positioned themselves as the only real pro-Americans in the the United States. Now it's not looking quite so pro-American to unquestioningly support George Whistle-Ass Bush, they're getting a little desperate. But Brit Hume is supposed to be a journalist for crying out loud. Fair and balanced? He should despise himself for misleading the public in such a fashion. It's hard to imagine even Rush Limbaugh sinking this low.

Unfortunately, the millions of dittoheads who don't understand high-falutin concepts like, you know, fractions, might not pick up on the nuances.

Now, what I want to know is, where are the Fox News talent scouts? I could use a cushy job in statistical manipulation and shady journalism after I graduate in December.

Posted by Jim Dallas at September 2, 2003 12:39 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Hey Jim-
When you land your cushy job doing "shady journalism", lemme know. I know people, who know people. *Gives a nervous twitch :)
PS. I could use a job in that area... you know, coming up with things like "The One Bullet Theory". Now THAT is some great and accurate journalism (not to mention statistics).

Posted by: Erin at September 2, 2003 10:14 PM
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