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FactCheck.org takes aim at a relatively hilarious smear e-mail that asserts, using totally made-up numbers, that more soldiers died under Clinton than under Bush, then manages to add up its own fake numbers incorrectly. FactCheck.org seems vaguely offended by this layering of innumeracy of dishonesty, but as a philosophical question, it's not entirely clear to me that false numbers can ever be added up "correctly." Given that the end result is supposed to be total military deaths during the Clinton and Bush years, both operations yield results that are equivalently incorrect. Metaphysics of smear e-mails aside, this bit from Fact Check's response is striking:
According to the CRS, during the Clinton administration, one person in uniform died as a result of hostilities and another 75 died as a result of terrorist attacks. By contrast, during the first six years of the Bush administration, 2,596 troops died from hostilities and 55 from terrorist attacks. Looking at the non-hostile deaths (i.e., accidents, homicides, suicides and illnesses), we find that an average of 947 military personnel died each year during the Bush administration compared with 913 during the Clinton administration .And yet Bush is probably still considered the more pro-military president. Bizarre.
