Received from defense attorney and Vietnam Vet Terry Kindlon, on the new William Buckley column on the Chinook Helicopter:

History repeats! Sh*t happens! Found an interesting piece today by William F. Buckley, Jr., on the subject of why we shouldn't get too worked up about one little helicopter full of dead soldiers. The analysis has a certain appeal for us cynics who see all those pesky "Iraq is Vietnam" parallels, because, here, for the first time since right after the 1968 Tet Offensive, a conservative columnist is patiently instructing us--again--that if you'll just compare the number of soldiers killed in a given period of time (like, five minutes for example) to the number of Americans killed in car accidents in a year, you will not feel particularly upset about the dead soldiers (especially if none of them happens to be you, your kid, your father, mother, sister, brother or anybody else you actually used to play golf with at the country club). I can distinctly remember a fat guy in a hard hat making that car wreck argument back in 1969. It didn't work for me, but then I actually knew a bunch of the dead soldiers, so I guess I didn't really have the proper perspective.

In any event, now that Mr. Buckley has resurrected this argument, I'm wondering if I can use it as a defense in my next murder case? Sample opening statement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, please put the charges against my client 'into perspective.'" There were 43,000 'Mericans killed in car wrecks last year, not to mention 16 people killed in one helicopter wreck, and my client is merely accused of killing one little family of four..."

Think it'll work?