Now We Know Where David Brooks Gets His Stats (hint: it's a dark place close to his backside)

Bob Woodward and David Brooks discussed the Iraq War with Tim Russert on last Sunday's Meet the Press. Check out this exchange:

RUSSERT: "Is there any way to achieve, in Washington, a bipartisan
consensus on what to do about Iraq?"




BROOKS: It's based upon this unknown: I don't think there's any possibility
that within five years that we're going to see a drastic diminution of violence.
So we could be losing 125 Americans every month for five years. On the other
hand --




WOODWARD: I mean that's politically impossible --




BROOKS: But, so you think "OK, get out." On the other hand, if we
leave....we could see 250,000 Iraqis die -- you had the John Burns quotation
earlier in the program. So are we willing to prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month
at the cost of 125 Americans? That's a tough moral issue, but it's also a tough
national interest issue, because we don't know what the consequences of getting
out are. And the frustration of watching the debate in Washington, very few
people are willing to grapple with those two facts: that there's gonna -- the
surge will not work in the short term, but getting out will be cataclysmic. And
you see politicians on both sides evading one of those two facts, but you've got
to grapple with them both....




WOODWARD: And the problem, though, is we don't know. People can say, "Oh,
it's going to be a disaster." I mean, you've -- you cite numbers which are
pulled out of the air -- "10,000 dying" -- I mean that's -- where does that come
from?




BROOKS: Well, A, it comes from John Burns. Second, it comes from the
national intelligence...




WOODWARD: Well, no, he doesn’t say 10,000.




BROOKS: Well, no, no, but it talks about genocide.




WOODWARD: Yeah.




BROOKS: So I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.

These are the people trying to influence policy and public opinion.