Both Tim Russert ("54,000") and George Stephanopoulos ("60,000") asserted today that Iraqi civilian deaths number in the tens of thousands. These statements significantly understate the total -- conflicting not only with the results of the most careful scientific studies of the civilian toll but with the Iraqi government's view. This little habit, assuming that only deaths that manage to get reported in the media during a civil war are real, should never go unchallenged.