A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

We are increasingly seeing recourse to the deeply suspicious strategy of taking just about each and every calamity and attaching it to the failing of a particular politician or political party we don't like merely for the purpose of scoring partisan purposes and irrespective of how removed the commission of that calamity might have been from politics. So it is with the recent mining calamity in West Virginia; naturally, the knives are out for the Bush Administration, which somehow has come to be blamed for the calamity.

Comes now Kevin Whalen to set a few things straight. Citing to this report, the good Mr. Whalen highlights the following:

Coal mine production reached the highest levels in history in recent years. In 2004 coal mining fatalities were near the lowest level in history with 28. Even with the recent high production, MSHA's accident reduction efforts helped to keep the annual fatality totals nearly 50% lower in recent years compared with totals recorded in the early 1990s.

1. Clinton's last year in office, 2000, there were 48 deaths in coal mines. In 2004, there were 28.

2. The injury rate in 2000 was 6.64, in 2004 it was 5.00

3. Citations for safety violations in 2000: 58,285; Citations for violations in 2004: 64,635 (this would indicate to me more rigorous enforcement under Bush, especially after having cut back on coal industry enforcement jobs as the Democrats claim. Sounds to me like the Clinton administration was asleep at the switch).

And piling on is James Joyner, whose comprehensive posting ends with the following:

Now, it's possible that the lower number of deaths during the Bush administration is a statistical anomaly. Maybe their are fewer miners than there were before. Maybe they have just been lucky and there have been few deaths despite shoddy enforcement. But to hype the idea that the Administration has cut enforcement for mining safety in the wake of a mining disaster and then bury all information pointing the other way is irresponsible.

Indeed, I am more than willing to accept the possibility that the low number of mining deaths during the Bush Administration--and the higher number that occurred during the Clinton Administration--are all statistical anomalies. But not only is there an argument afoot that they are not statistical anomalies, in fact, there is an argument afoot to the effect that if you are a miner, you stand a greater chance of dying during the Bush Administration than you would have during the Clinton Administration.

It beggars belief, in light of the statistics, that such an argument could actually find credence. And yet it does. Raise your hands if this state of intellectual affairs comforts you in any way, shape or form. Then try to convince me that all is well. I promise to be receptive to your message, as I would hate to believe the alternative.

(Cross posted on RedState.)