Make Brit Hume Apologize!

[Oddman]

BRIT HUME OWES TROOPS AN APOLOGY by Al Franken 4/6/2004 at 13:02

On August 26, 2003 Brit Hume said on Fox News:
“Two hundred seventy-seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that statistically speaking U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California, which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they’re incurring about 1.7 deaths, including illness and accidents each day.”
This is a grotesque distortion of fact. As Howard Kurtz reported in the Washington Post, “California has 34 million people, but there are 145,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.” As Buzzflash.com calculated, this means that U.S. troops in Iraq at that time were 66 times more likely to die than Californians were likely to be murdered.

When Kurtz asked him about his comment, Hume responded: "Admittedly it was a crude comparison, but it was illustrative of something."

I agree.

It was illustrative of how Hume shills for this administration, playing down the risk to our troops. It’s illustrative of how shameless Brit Hume is, and how shameless Fox News is. It’s been almost seven months since Hume said this, and he hasn’t retracted it.

Mr. Hume should apologize to our troops and their families for his deliberately misleading statement. Write Brit Hume and demand that he apologize at [email protected], or call Fox News at 1-888-369-4762. I don’t want to harass them or jam their phones--be polite, but clear.

[Journeyman]

1. Brit Hume is correct. . .

California is roughly the same size as Iraq, but it has far more people (about a third again more). But more than that, there are approximately the same number of law enforcement officers in California as there are American soldiers in Iraq (and those soldiers are, for better or worse, attempting to function as law enforcement these days). So using his analogy, does Mr. Hume seriously believe that if there were even so low a number as 2 police officers being killed each day in California, that the state -- and indeed, the nation -- wouldn't consider this a tragedy of incomparable scope?

Any politician, or even a talking head toady, who attempted to downplay the seriousness of such an appalling situation, wouldn't remain in their job to the end of the shift.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. Here is a more realistic comparison

Not only dowe California have a larger population, but Hume is only counting US casualties and excluding the thousands, possibly tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths. If you compare the California population to the number of US military personel the disparity is stunning:

- If US solidiers in Iraq had the same risk as homicide in California, they would only have had 2-3 deaths so far.

- If California had a homicide rate that matched the death rate for US soldiers in Iraq, the state would have something like 150,000 murders per year (crude estimate, I don't have exact figures on number of US personel in Iraq)

[caledesi]

3. Such a stupid illustration.

If you wanna play this faux-statistics war, Brit, that California has more than 2300 homicides each year...

Then why are we so concerned about 9/11? 3000 died that day.

[Miss Authoritiva]

4. Crap, damn crap, and statistical crap!

I see, it was a crude comparison but an illustrative one -- but what it was illustrative of Hume couldn't say.

I'd say it is a revealing bit of faux erudition -- "Listen to me pronounce the word 'illustrative' and listen to me use the phrase 'crude comparison' as if I were a statistician and actually knew what I was talking about."

I've come to the conclusion that the only reporters with any credibility these days are the ones who do the traffic updates.