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July 17, 2006
Gary Hart Owns an Oxford Dictionary, Still Dishonest
Mea Culpa - Gary Hart does own a dictionary and read from it during an interview:
Casualty, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, is killed, maimed or injured in war. So, American casualties are listed as 1500, but are close to 25,000. That figure includes 10 or 12 thousand non-combat casualties of whom it is estimated 1000 to 1500 have been sent home because of psychological and psychiatric disorders from having killed civilians or witnessed their deaths.
Notice my emphasis: Hart understands that most Americans think of death when they hear the word "casualty." Gary Hart is correct that it includes those injured.
But when you're running around trying to prevent a war, you don't say: I expect 5,000 to 10,000 casualties and mean people injured--you use the numbers of the expected deaths.
Moreover, we see how fast and loose Hart is with the numbers.
He said here that American casualties are 25,000 with 1500 deaths. That was 18 months ago. Now he says this:
I predicted that, if the Iraqis decided to fight in the cities, our casualties would be between five and ten thousand U.S. troops at least. Now, U.S. casualties exceed 20,000.
Funny how he only uses 20,000 now. Why not say exceeds 30,000 for dramatic flourish? Certainly, with 1000 more American deaths in Iraq, there has to be thousands more injured.
The point is that he is just throwing numbers around and Hart recognized this public confusion over the word casualty above. If he knows this, he would have characterized his previous prediction in terms of deaths and injuries.
Posted by Aaron at July 17, 2006 08:14 AM
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Comments
Someone attempting to communicate, usually uses the word that means what he wants to say. Someone wanting to communicate the number of deaths would use the word fatalities. Bias is the only "evidence" that Hart meant something else. Using a word in order to prevent a war (or support one) doens't change its meaning except for those who are bending over backwards to discredit people, instead of discrediting arguments.
Are we using the Dictionary or Il Principe?
Posted by: KeithS at July 17, 2006 10:08 AM
His inconsistent use of statistics demonstrate that he is simply throwing out numbers. For that, I am criticizing him.
My GUT tells me he is playing games with semantics. That's my opinion and I posted it. I don't think it's a big stretch.
I am not trying to parse a word like "is" for its several meanings....
Thank God people like him don't run the country. How many concessions would he have made when the chinese showed him pictures of him on that boat cavorting with a whore if the media didn't get a hold of it?
Posted by: Aaron at July 17, 2006 10:30 AM