Perhaps the number pales in significance when viewed alongside the number of Iraqis and Afghans who are killed daily in the civil wars our policies helped to foment. Perhaps it is because the events in Baghdad, Basra, Kandahar and Kabul have been overshadowed by the capture of three Israeli soldiers and their nation’s response to that military threat. Perhaps it is because we have been watching the count rise each day for more than four years. But whatever the reason the deaths of one or two soldiers each day has become commonplace.

It isn’t news that the Department of Homeland Security has misspent billions of dollars on no-bid contracts intended to strengthen our defenses against terrorist attacks within our borders. Luxury hotel suites for contractors interviewing employment applicants for TSA positions and a network of cameras along our land borders that could not weather ice and cold or heat and humidity are just two examples cited in a government audit report. That is not news because like dead soldiers contractor rip-offs have become the rule rather than the exception in our endless war of terrorism. The day to day drain of money and blood has become routine and unremarkable.

That BP reported another round of excess profits on the same day that BP regular unleaded reached $3.129 at its Midwest stations isn’t news. The Republican Congressional leadership and the White House strangely are silent as to that development. The oil companies announce record profits every quarter. Exxon’s revenues in the second quarter of 2006 topped One Billion Dollars per day on its way to the second largest quarterly profit ever reported by a US company. Talk about pay at the pump! But it isn’t news – it is just one more aspect of the Bush Administration record with which we are all familiar.

Israel and Hezbollah rip southern Lebanon to shreds while Condi Rice exercises herself from Capitol to Capitol. Her message is that the United States favors a ceasefire. It just doesn’t favor one now. The time for a ceasefire is the day after Israel totally vanquishes its foe. Meanwhile the United States will ship humanitarian aid to Beirut and expedite shipments to Israel from its stock pile of smart bombs.

And that isn’t news either.