Great news from the day after the Day After Tomorrow: Far fewer tidal waves!
William Safire can't believe the librulmedia is ignoring the good news out of Iraq.
"Have you read the encouraging headlines from Iraq? 'Monthly U.S. Combat Deaths Down by Half in May' is one."
Normally I'd keep going and make fun of the whole column, but this opening line is such a jaw-dropper that I'm gonna stop right there.
First of all, he's worded that very carefully in order to make it more or less correct. Throw in non-U.S. and "non-hostile" fatalities and the May count is far more than half the April one.
But that's not the, um, half of it. Ya see, May US combat deaths are in fact down by roughly half from April: 63 down from 131. But only because April was the deadliest month of the war to date. The "encouraging" May figure is still more than double what it was for March, February, January, December... Hell, only two months of combat since March, 2003 have seen more U.S. combat deaths than May. Talk about your encouraging headlines.
Sources: Fatalities by month and country. Fatalities by hostile/non-hostile cause.