McCain on the value of human -- er, American -- life

John McCain insensitive to the human cost of the war in Iraq?

Au contraire. He's very sensitive:

"Nothing is more precious than Americans, and I know that it has caused great heartache and pain," he said, "but I also want to tell you that I believe in the conflict in Iraq with this new strategy, we are succeeding.

"Every American is precious, every casualty is someone that pains and grieves us, no one more than a veteran," said Mr. McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. "But the consequences of failure would be chaos and genocide in the region."

Maybe that's why we don't even bother to count the number of Iraqis killed, while estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, even a million.

Every American is precious.

Iraqis' lives are cheap.

And it's really "not too important" when the killing stops.