Wednesday, February 2

One death a tragedy, millions a statistic

I swore I wasn't going to watch the SOTU. Really, I turned on the TV by accident, preparing to cue-up a DVD (Yimou Zhang's Hero, if you must know). I had tuned-in during one of those applause lines for someone being singled-out in the gallery. I saw a close-up on what were probably the parents of some dead soldier, and then cut to our fearless leader...beginning to tear-up.

Gee, as a balance to this cheap sentimentality, maybe the broadcast could have had a crawl at the bottom of the screen pointing out that given the 1440 US troop deaths in Iraq as of today, there are thousands more parents just like these two — only they won't fit in the gallery.

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