Bob McCarty Writes

I find it odd how members of the mainstream news media choose to report on matters such as the combat death toll among members of the U.S. military. Instead of focusing on the fact that the number of deaths during the so-called Global War on Terror has been extremely low when compared to previous conflicts, they strive — predictably, I might add — to stir controversy.

Case in point: A link I found to USA TODAY’s “FULL COVERAGE: U.S. casualties in Iraq.”

I came upon the link while reading a recent USA TODAY article in which it was reported that rural Americans are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan in numbers disproportionate to the populations of their hometowns.

“Full coverage,” in this case, consisted only of publishing a list of annual casualty counts interspersed with feature stories about sacrifices made by brave warriors in uniform and those they left behind. Had USA TODAY wanted to offer truly complete coverage, they would have turned months earlier to statistics published in a July 2007 Congressional Research Service Report for data.

There, they would have been able to offer something more substantial, such as a comparison of the number of military deaths during President George W. Bush’s first six years in office to the number during President Bill Clinton’s eight years in office. Had they followed such a path, they would have found that 8,792 service members died during the years 2001 through 2006 under Bush while 7,500 died during the years 1993 through 2000 under Clinton.

Again, those numbers:

Bush = 8,792 died during Wartime (2001 through 2006); and

Clinton = 7,500 died during Peacetime (1993 through 2000).

But did the news media report the Clinton-era deaths in the same light as they reported deaths during the Bush Administration? No. As usual, they chose to skew left. There is, as we all know, an election to be won in 2008 and, if it takes biased reporting to help a Democrat win the White House in 2008, it appears USA TODAY is willing to make a contribution.