Of What Was It Illustrative?

On Aug. 26, [Brit] Hume reported that "U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California, which is roughly the same geographical size." California has 6.6 murders a day, he said; U.S. troops have been incurring about 1.7 deaths a day. The problem: California has 34 million people, but there are 145,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. "Admittedly it was a crude comparison, but it was illustrative of something," Hume says.