Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

He doesn't give a shit, I think.

I watched his latest (or next to last, don't know which) speech in Philadelphia, after which he took questions and mentioned the 30,000 number in response to one of them. As he answered, it seemed (to me) as if he were peeved that he was even asked the question, but somehow connected in his brain that he had said "I am responsible" so had to answer somehow.

A sad, but true, answer: If you don't count them, they don't exist in the public perception.

No coverage of the return of dead soldiers = no dead soldiers.
No counting of dead civilians = no dead civilians.

Anything else is the result of unfortunate news leaks that can be dismissed as the rantings of hostile media, enemy sympathizers, and partisan political interests. Accurate counting, and the type of connections to which Zuckerman points, removes yet another justification for the war (vis-a-vis the death and destruction wrought by Saddam Hossein).

On a related note, one set of commentary I have yet to see is a critical analysis of GWB's recent series of mea culpa speeches. It is difficult not to be cynical in framing these exclusively as a way of recovering lost polling points in the run-up to the mid-term Congressional elections, as opposed to, say, the discovery of conscience, humility and introspection.

Have you read Tim Lambert's blog, Deltoid? In it, he examines the Lancet numbers, and, most importantly, everyone who complains about them and finds the complainers come up quite short. Deltoid is one of my frequent stops in the blogosphere:

http://timlambert.org/

I came here to find an opinion on the Structured Blogging announcement, and instead I find this drivel.

Ethan's post is lucid and intelligent as always, and he discusses the Lancet study and the IraqBodyCount website. All you add here is that "relying on media reports" means that the President "doesn't give a shit." Now I have no qualms about your conclusion, but logically it doesn't follow from your hypothesis. If he did NOT rely on media reports (as he notoriously volunteered in the past, aka "the Bush bubble") then that would convey a damning out-of-touchness (as it should have). The government apparatus of our country relies on "media reports," especially in foreign affairs. Precisely because we can trust the press, we don't have a bureaucracy of data-collectors. Especially considering that the majority of Iraqis killed these days (going back a year I think) are the result of insurgent violence and not coalition actions.

The IraqBodyCount is a noble effort of, shall I say, "citizen data-collecting" and should be recognized for that. The only thing keeping it from getting wider recognition is that its presentation is a pastiche of anti-war pornography. Better it should humbly and solemnly count the dead on both sides.

The question is whether US forces are doing the book-keeping on the ground, with regard to known and estimated casualty figures, and feeding their figures back up the line. I strongly suspect they're not - which means that the government genuinely doesn't know what the figure is.

Jon, I assume that we have some form of intelligence gathering service that has access to the very information we keep hidden from the media. If that service isn't tracking Iraqi deaths, then I'd like to know why. If it is, then why aren't we being told?

Would you have been satisfied if Bush had been asked how many US soldiers had been killed and he had replied "According to media estimates..."?

Finally, you disagree with me. I disagree with you. It seems to me to be a reasonable argument. So why be insulting about it? It gets in the way. And it's ironic coming from a guy whose blog is http://civilities.net.

What's drivel is an incomplete story appearing in JOHO, and none of your readers actually supplying the facts. You've got to be pretty solid if you just offhand write that the President doesn't give a shit.

It's not journalism, you've said before, but when you've got a thousand subscribers (from BlogLines alone), you have to consider the weight of your words upon your audience. This is the old "blogging two-step" which Henry Farrell levelled at Glenn Reynolds (e.g., Take me seriously; except when I'm not).

I've just stopped reading blogs the moment that they cede the fact-finding duties to their audience. It's a waste of time for me as a reader. It's one thing if you said to your readers "I have a hunch, can people research this for me?" That's very old-school, but it's a fair thing to do every so often.

It's 1:30am, and I've taken a good 15 minutes to Google around. The news stories from 10/25/2005 are helpful. Here's a Washington Post
article by Bradley Graham and followup chat.

Jon, let me spell out my argument in excruciating detail that it really doesn't need. Then please point me precisely at the fact I got wrong.

1. Bush cited media reports on the number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war.

2. I conclude that this means our gov't doesn't track those numbers, because otherwise W would have cited them.

3. I conclude that our gov't doesn't care enough about those numbers to think they're worth tracking. Otherwise, we'd do it.

4. I conclude that W doesn't care enough about those numbers to ask our gov't to track them or even to ask his advisors. That's what I mean by not giving a shit.

Is this a unassailable chain of logic? Nah, but I think it's pretty reasonable. And, as far as I can tell, it gets the facts right. I haven't read anyone contradicting the most fact-like supposition I raise: Our gov't doesn't track civilian deaths.

BTW, the article you point to is about the gov't starting to track the insurgents we kill, and is thus irrelevant to this discussion.

thanks..

He doesn't give a shit, I think.
BTW, the article you point to is about the gov't starting to track the insurgents we kill, and is thus irrelevant to this discussion.

Thanks, excellent..

The familial support structure that any kid needs has been disrupted by by illness, mental illness, drugs, abuse, crime, self-loathing, and the simple grind of proverty itself. Normal school culture is not going to make much a dent.

Normal school culture is not going to make much a dent.

Who gives a shit? They are all potential terrorists anyway. As far as i'm concerned we should just drop a bomb on them and leave. And while we're at it blow up the liberal journalists too.