February 1, 2005
The Washington Times reports this morning that the heavy turnout for the Iraq elections not only surprised those in the West who thought that the threat of violence would suppress the vote, but shocked the Sunnis, who counted on it: Sunni Arabs yesterday appeared shocked by the large turnout of Shi'ites and Kurds in Sunday's elections, with some anxiously looking for ways to bolster their representation in the new government that will emerge from them. But many Shi'ites, triumphant after voting in high numbers in spite of terrorist threats, had a simple message for the Sunnis who stayed home: Tough luck. Yazin al-Jabouri, a spokesman for the Sunni-led Homeland Party, said many people in Sunni parts of the country hadn't voted because the electoral commission had not sent enough ballot boxes and forms. "They didn't think people were going to vote," he said, adding that he had sent a letter...
In a slap at the Democratic leadership that has screeched about "exit strategies" after Sunday's historic victory for democracy, the Iraqi president proclaimed talk of withdrawing American troops "nonsense" and a recipe for disaster in the region: Iraq's interim president said Tuesday it would be "complete nonsense" to ask U.S. and other foreign troops to leave Iraq at this point but some of the 170,000 soldiers could be leaving Iraq by the end of the year. Ghazi al-Yawer, who had been a strong critic of some aspects of the U.S. military operation in Iraq, said foreign troops should leave only after Iraq's security forces are built up, the security situation has improved and some pockets of terrorists are eliminated. "It's only complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," al-Yawer told reporters. Perhaps Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Mark Dayton, and...
I missed this yesterday, but Myopic Zeal points out a revealing New York Daily News item about Howard Dean and his quest to lead the Democrats for the next four years. Dean rallied his supporters by engaging in his famously moderate rhetoric: "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization," the failed presidential hopeful told the crowd at the Roosevelt Hotel, where he and six other candidates spoke at the final DNC forum before the Feb. 12 vote for chairman. But Dean said the Democrats should not change their beliefs to be "Republican lite." "We can talk about our faith, but we cannot change our faith," he said, echoing themes he sounded in his presidential bid. "We need to be people of conviction." Oh my. Does the DNC want the Democrats to become the Party of Hate? And just what kind...
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune finally reacted to the Iraqi election on its editorial page, and to my surprise, with amazing reasonableness -- at least for the Strib. While they decline to discuss why they waited a full day to react, they didn't make the same mistake that the New York Times made in scoffing with faint praise at the historic nature of the event. The Strib, however, still sticks to its guns (so to speak) in refusing to understand why American security depended on this outcome: It was easy to find naysayers who viewed Sunday's Iraqi election darkly. Do not count us among them. Yes, there were suicide bombers, mortar shells and other violence. But they simply made the act of voting all the more poignant. By their courageous votes, a majority of Iraqi citizens sent a blistering message to the insurgents and terrorists: We don't want you; we don't want...
Here's a report that will likely have everyone buzzing shortly: Secretary-General Kofi Annan has selected former U.S. President Bill Clinton to be the U.N. point man for tsunami relief and reconstruction, a well-informed U.N. diplomat said Tuesday. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard refused to confirm the appointment but said "a statement will be released on the subject by my office in the next few hours." Why do I hear the theme from "Jaws" in my mind, all of a sudden? How fortunate for Hillary Clinton that her husband will have such a high-profile position over the next couple of years. It will give her endless opportunities to be seen in his shadow, smiling and nodding but unable to get a word in edgewise against the Great Oxygen Remover. On the other hand, pushing him to the opposite side of the globe may give Hillary the opportunity to work alone for a...
Bill Ardolino at INDC Journal celebrates his first blogiversary today by sharing a slideshow of images from his creative and intrepid reporting. Be sure to drive his bandwidth costs out of sight by checking it out -- and drop one of the blogosphere's best a congrats on this special day....
Fresh off of their reaction to the historic Iraqi elections as a defeat which required an immediate retreat, the leadership of the Democratic Party further cemented its separation from political reality by declaring today that they failed to obstruct enough judicial nominees in the last session of Congress: Senate Democrats are "not going to cut and run" from a battle over President Bush's judicial nominations, the party's leader vowed Tuesday, adding that some Democrats regret not having blocked even more appointments. "If they bring back the same judges we're going to do the same thing," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of the administration. Democrats blocked votes on 10 of Bush's first-term appointments to the courts and confirmed more than 200. Republicans have threatened to change long-standing Senate rules to strip Democrats of their ability to block votes, but Reid sounded a note of defiance. "Well, let them do it," he...
Forumblog, the blog dedicated to covering the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, reported last Friday that CNN chief Eason Jordan accused the US military of targeting journalists for assassination, and succeeding in twelve cases (via Hugh Hewitt): During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others. Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if he had any objective and clear evidence to backup these claims, because if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in...
Kuwait killed five al-Qaeda operatives and captured three more, including the cell leader, as AQ has shifted its focus from Saudi Arabia to the American ally in the Persian Gulf. The AQ cell had targeted American homes in the kingdom for destruction: Kuwait passed emergency anti-terrorism laws yesterday that granted police wider search powers after foiling a plot to bomb an American residential complex and breaking up an al-Qa'eda cell. ... Security forces said the group were part of a 24-member cell that had been virtually eliminated in four gun battles in the last month. Eight terrorists had been killed and 14 captured. Two were still on the run. Police discovered plans to bomb the Alia-Ghalia apartment complex, also known as Fintas Towers, twin high-rise buildings overlooking the sea south of the capital. Apparently, AQ has found the going a bit too tough in Saudi Arabia these days. Either the...
CQ reader and commenter Fluff 'n Stuff did a little research on the Eason Jordan accusations of deliberate assassinations of journalists by the American military, and he found this interview of Jordan by Transnational Broadcast Studies in the spring of 2002. TBS is a publication of the American University in Cairo, where Jordan talked about the difficulties of covering the news around the world and being a global broadcaster instead of an American news service. The last question that TBS Managing Editor Sarah Sullivan asks Jordan about the technical difficulties of covering the war in Southwest Asia, but Jordan drifts off into strangely familiar territory (emphasis mine): Sullivan: Your coverage in Afghanistan, it's been reported, has been one of the most expensive and resource-intensive operations CNN has ever undertaken. Can you describe who you have there now, what kind of technologies are being used, and how you're even getting equipment...
February 2, 2005
Greg Borowski reports in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that an analysis of voting records done by the newspaper reveals that seventeen precincts in the city showed at least 100 more votes than the number of registered voters, even counting the already-problematic same-day registrants. Four precincts, or wards, had more than 500 extra votes: Record-keeping surrounding the Nov. 2 presidential election in Milwaukee is so flawed that in 17 wards there were at least 100 more votes recorded than people listed by the city as voting there. In two wards, one on the south side and one on the north side, the gap is more than 500, with fewer than half the votes cast in each ward accounted for in the city's computer system, a Journal Sentinel review has found. Such gaps were present at different levels in nearly all of the city wards and could hamper the investigation launched last week...
The Washington Times carries a story today that simply is too weird to pass without notice. A part owner and "aspiring pop star" in a minor-league (ABA) basketball team from Nashville ran onto the court in the middle of a game last Saturday and ordered the head coach to bench their star player. When the coach refused, she fired her before being carried off the floor in hysterical rage: The victim was 23-year-old Ashley McElhiney, coach of the minor league American Basketball Association club and the first woman to coach a professional men's basketball team. The owner was Sally Anthony, an aspiring pop star who once gave fans at a Rhythm game free copies of her new album. On Saturday, she gave them something else, storming onto the court in the middle of the game to order the coach to bench a new player, Matt Freije. McElhiney refused. Mrs. Anthony...
The Sunnis in Iraq still appear to suffer from an electoral hangover. Earlier today, Sunni clerics declared that Sunni underrepresentation in Iraq's historic election -- which they psrtly caused by calling for the Sunni boycott -- renders the resultant government merely temporary. They demand that the new parliament assume only limited powers and schedule new elections immediately: In its first statement since the balloting, the Association of Muslim Scholars said the balloting lacked legitimacy because of low Sunni participation. The Association called months ago on Sunnis to shun the polls because of the presence of U.S. and other foreign troops. ... In its statement, the Association said the election "lacks legitimacy because a large portion of these people who represent many spectra have boycotted it." As a result, the Association said the new leadership lacked a mandate to draft a new constitution and should be considered a temporary administration. "We...
The Michigan state chair of the Democratic Party called demands from the DNC for an audit of campaign funds a political tactic designed to "tarnish" one of Howard Dean's main opponents in the race for the DNC chair. Mark Brewer refused to conduct an audit on the $8 million in question: The DNC has demanded an audit of the state party's books because its donors want to know where the money went. The request has been turned down, with Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer arguing that an audit is unnecessary. "We don't see a need for it. But we're happy to answer any questions that they may have," Brewer said. "There was nothing wrong that was done. That's why there was no need for an audit." Brewer said the complaints against him are really an attempt to tarnish the Michigan director of the Kerry-Edwards campaign, Donnie Fowler, in his campaign...
CQ reader John J. passes along two interesting reports about Eason Jordan's personal connection to a journalist that actually was targeted and assassinated in the Middle East. The London Telegraph did a human-interest profile on the widow of Danny Pearl, whose capture and beheading by Islamists in Pakistan first showed the world the bigotry, inhumanity, and bloodthirsty nature of the Islamofascist thugs arrayed against the West. The Telegraph updated its readers on the renaissance of Marianne Pearl in October 2004: It was an extraordinary way to lose a husband - butchered in Pakistan by kidnappers who revelled in their own inhumanity, who filmed their deeds in order to heighten the shock to Western sensibilities. But Mariane is an extraordinary woman. Instead of curling into a shell, as she is convinced Daniel's assassins hoped she would, she has turned her life into a straightforward declaration of intent: "Terrorists may have destroyed...
CQ reader and new blogger The Baron spent a few shillings out of his own pocket for a Nexis article on Eason Jordan research, and as we dig more and more into Jordan's public record, the more we find that Jordan seems obsessed with journalist-targeting. The Baron finds an article from USA Today by Marilyn Greene that ran on page 3 of their 10/5/93 edition. Greene wrote about the lack of reporters in strife-torn Mogadishu, and interviewed Jordan as well as the Toronto Star's Paul Watson. Watson accuses US troops of shooting at him, while Jordan excuses the lack of CNN correspondents in the region to journalist-targeting by combatants: When U.S. troops landed in Somalia, they were met on the beach by a horde of TV cameras and reporters. When U.S. helicopters were downed Sunday in Somalia, not a single U.S. reporter was in Mogadishu to record the event. In...
I've done more Nexis searching myself and found more background on Eason Jordan and the journalist-targeting issue. To say that this may be Jordan's favorite talking point is an understatement; I'm beginning to believe that no one has written a major article on the subject without his input. This article comes from the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, published on March 1, 2004 as a straight news item as compared to his Media Notes column. Under the headline "For Reporters in Iraq, Security Gets Personal," Kurtz reported: There is a long tradition in the news business that journalists, like Red Cross workers, should be seen as unaligned observers with no weapons or agenda. That tradition is being sorely tested, journalists say, in Iraq, where insurgents routinely *target* Americans in shootings and bombings in an effort to undermine the occupying force. ... Safety is a constant topic of discussion. Several news organizations...
Eason Jordan appears to like spreading the slander around when it comes to accusations of assassination attempts by Western military forces. CQ reader and blogger Peter Cook found this forum transcript from News Xchange 2002, where Jordan makes the same accusations -- with the same lack of specifics -- against the Israelis: NG: Eason, why do you think you've been targeted specifically, I mean there are Israeli bumper stickers that say 'CNN lies', the Israeli communications minister talked about CNN as being 'evil, biased and unbalanced' you'll be familiar with all these quotes? EJ: Absolutely, well the Israeli government is making a mistake if it considers CNN the enemy, CNN is just trying to tell the story of Israel, the story of Palestinian areas in a straightforward way. We're not trying to favour one side over the other we're not going to pull any punches in our reporting but the...
In October 2002, Eason Jordan claimed that the Israeli Defensive Forces had shot a CNN reporter as part of a deliberate strategy of targeting journalists covering the war in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (see post below). I did a little searching on Nexis again, confident that had CNN reporters taken fire in the line of duty, CNN would report it. I conducted a search for 'CNN reporter shot' (non-exclusive), and I got only five hits, all of which reported the same incident, which occurred on October 31, 2000. According to CNN's own coverage of the incident and their own eyewitness to the event, Eason Jordan lied about it during the October 2002 conference: DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Violence in the Middle East has been increasing over the past few days. The death toll is rising. At least, 151 people have been killed in the clashes, and today the...
Rebecca MacKinnon, a TV reporter as well as a blogger, somewhat reluctantly confirms the account given in Forumblog about Eason Jordan's remarks in Davos last week (hat tip TKS). MacKinnon writes in her blog, RConversations: I was in the room and Rony's account is consistent with what I heard. I was also contributing to the Forumblog, but to be honest, Jordan happens to be my former boss who promoted me and defended me in some rather sticky situations after my reporting angered the Chinese government. As CNN's "senior statesman" over the years, Eason has done some things I agreed with and other things I wondered about. But at least when it came to China, he was no apologist and defended my reports on human rights abuses and political dissent. Actually, I find Ms. MacKinnon's loyalties to both the truth and her former boss admirable. It's obvious that she thought carefully...
Hey, folks, guess what I just received in my e-mail? Many blogs have taken Mr. Jordan's remarks out of context. Eason Jordan does not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists. Mr. Jordan simply pointed out the facts: While the majority of journalists killed in Iraq have been slain at the hands of insurgents, the Pentagon has also noted that the U.S. military on occasion has killed people who turned out to be journalists. The Pentagon has apologized for those actions. Mr. Jordan was responding to an assertion by Cong. Frank that all 63 journalist victims had been the result of "collateral damage." I posted this earlier, as TKS had received it after sending CNN a complaint by e-mail. However, I never did send CNN an e-mail -- and this message was e-mailed to me specifically, with my address in the To: field. Do you think someone at...
In yet another example of how Eason Jordan tosses around accusations without much supporting evidence -- or any at all -- the Guardian (UK) covering the News Xchange Forum this past November reports on accusations of the torture of journalists by American forces (hat tip - Peter Cook): Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities. "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal. Once again, we go to CNN's own archives to find any report that mentions Jordan and the torture of reporters by any...
I will be live-blogging the State of the Union speech tonight, on this post. It starts at 8 pm CT, and since I have TiVo, I may use it to scroll back when necessary to capture what was said. 7:59 CT - The escort committees have been selected and have gone off to fetch the President. I'm settling in for the duration. I expect a good speech, but nothing terribly surprising or even particularly memorable. The best parts will have to do with the Iraqi elections, to be sure. Watch for the Ted Kennedy close-up on that one... 8:02 - Don't forget that Hugh Hewitt will appear on Joe Scarborough at 11 pm CT to discuss the SOTU speech. I expect him to bring up Eason's Fables ... 8:09 - We share it with a "free and sovereign Iraq." Nice start. 8:13 - After the reference to Iraq, Bush went...
Carol Platt Liebau has Eason Jordan's official response, which she got by working through mutual acquaintances. Jordan maintains that he never said that the US deliberately targeted journalists: "To be clear, I do not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists in Iraq. I said so during the forum panel discussion. But, nonetheless, the U.S. military has killed several journalists in Iraq in cases of mistaken identity. The reason the word "targeted" came up at all is because I was responding to a comment by Congressman Franks, who said he believed the 63 journalists killed in Iraq were the victims of "collateral damage." Since three of my CNN colleagues and many other journalists have been killed on purpose in Iraq, I disputed the "collateral damage" statement, saying, unfortunately, many journalists -- not all -- killed in Iraq were indeed targeted. When someone aims a gun at someone and...
Dear Mr. Jordan, While I appreciate your response, I find it singularly inadequate. Just in terms of the one incident in Davos, your characterization of the debate fails to match with the two independent sources we have already seen. The first source, Forumblog, tells us that your forum was videotaped. Where is the transcript? Why don't you simply produce that, or a videotape on CNN, with the portion of your statement? Surely CNN has the resources to track the tape down. The fact that your own news service fails to make that information available causes me to discount your characterization. Unfortunately, even had I been inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt about Davos, you have a clear pattern of speaking abroad to audiences inclined towards anti-Western sentiment and making unsubstantiated charges against the US and Israel. You also need to explain your statements in the following venues:...
February 3, 2005
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows that President Bush gave one of his most effective speeches last night, picking up converts for his strategies on Social Security and Iraq and wound up with an 86% positive response, his highest in 3 years: President Bush's State of the Union address raised support for his policies on health care and Social Security among people who watched the speech, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Wednesday night. The percentage of respondents who said the president's proposals in those areas will help the country rose 15 points from when the same question was asked of the same people in the two days before the speech. In the post-speech sample, 70 percent of respondents said Bush's policies on health care were positive, while 66 percent approved of the president's plan for Social Security. Bush showed almost as much improvement on Iraq, with 78 percent of...
Hugh Hewitt has a new column out for the Weekly Standard on media bias. His thoughts have has special resonance today as we see the major American media outlets put the Cone of Silence over Eason's Fables, which plays a part in Hugh's column. Hugh reminds us that bias not only exists in what's reported, but also in what isn't: Even though attention will turn today to the president's speech to the exclusion of almost everything else, let me underline two recent media events which deserve more scrutiny than they have thus far received. The first is the genuinely scandalous assertion by CNN's Eason Jordan, made at the World Economic Forum, that the United States military has targeted and killed a dozen journalists. The account of Jordan's remarks -including his backpedaling and the crowd's reactions--is available at ForumBlog. Thus far no major media outlet has demanded an accounting of Jordan,...
Ward Churchill, whose reference to certain 9/11 victims as "little Eichmans" drew such outrage, may have more to hide than first thought. Churchill has frequently touted his background as a Native American (Cherokee Nation) as his bona fides to teach and speak on Indian issues, among other causes. Now CQ reader Jim Walker notes a press release from the American Indian Movement and signed by well-known activist Dennis Banks that outs Churchill as a fraud: The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives. Churchill’s statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi...
The Northern Alliance will sit in for Hugh Hewitt tonight from 5-8 pm CT as Hugh is traveling today. We'll be taking on Peter Beinart in a foreshadowing of the debate next week at our Patriot Forum. Governor Bill Owen of Colorado will also be joining us, as will John Podhoretz of the New York Post, one of our favorite writers in the mainstream media. Be sure to tune us in, or check in at Hugh's site to listen via web streaming!...
Inspired by our interview of Peter Beinart this evening on the Hugh Hewitt show, I decided to take a read through The New Republic to find out what the center-left has to say about the speeches last night by George Bush and the tag-team of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I expected a defense of the Democratic response similar to that Beinart offerd Mitch and I in our interview -- that the two minority leaders had offered a serviceable if unspectacular counterpoint to Bush's "misleading" rhetoric on just about every topic. Instead, Michael Crowley writes a significant critique of both Pelosi and Reid along the same lines I wrote last night after their delivery of the Democratic response. Crowley refuses to tow the party line and scolds the Democrats for their vacuous, predictable ambiguity (subscription required): That congressional Democrats are still struggling to find their voice was plainly evident in...
Linda Seebach, columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, tips CQ that the National Conference of Editorial Writers has been discussing ethical concerns and accuracy standards in light of some high-profile editorial errors. (I don't know if she reads the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, but this is what Linda and the NCEW has in mind.) The president of the NCEW sent this message out to all of their members and authorized it for publication: I am pleased to announce that NCEW has set up a task force on syndicates to seek answers to our questions of ethics and corrections. Heading up the panel is Jerry Ausband, retired editorial page editor of Myrtle Beach. The task force will contact all of the syndicates to go over questions that have been raised on this groupserv and elsewhere. This will allow us to compare how syndicates are set up to deal with issues like those that...
February 4, 2005
The Washington Times becomes the first major daily to take Eason Jordan's paranoid rantings to task since the Wall Street Journal initially reported Congressman Barney Frank's challenge to the CNN chief. The Times issues a measured reprimand to Jordan for his predilection for making unsubstantiated allegations about atrocities: At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during a discussion on media and democracy, Mr. Jordan apparently told the audience that "he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted," according to a report on the forum's Web site (www.forumblog.org). ... [I]t's an assertion Mr. Jordan has made before. In November, as reported in the London Guardian, Mr. Jordan said, "The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been...
The debate on fixing Wisconsin's broken electoral system moved to the state legislature yesterday, where hearings opened on a bill that would require a state or military photo ID to verify identification of voters at polling stations. As expected, the Democrats lined up as many people as possible to whine about the extraordinary burden of carrying identification: Earlier this week, leaders in the Republican-controlled Legislature revived a bill similar to one vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in 2003 that would have required voters to show a valid photo ID to register and vote. It would alter Wisconsin's historically open elections process, which allows residents to vote by providing their names and addresses to poll workers, and register on election day by presenting proof of residence. ... Most people would show a driver's license to vote, but a state-issued identification card or military ID would also be accepted. The state...
... with the usual hilarious result. Be sure to check it out!...
Today is the First Mate's birthday, and I thought for a surprise I'd mention it here on the blog. For a combination birthday/anniversary celebration, we're heading out of town for a B&B weekend getaway, a gift to us both from my mother and sister. I will have only limited access to blogging and e-mail, but I thought it might be fun for the FM to hear greetings and comments from you all. If you can't leave comments on this post, e-mail her at this address: marcia - at - captainsquartersblog - dot - com. I'll read aloud to the FM anything that comes to her for her birthday. (Suggestions to dump the computer- and blog-obsessive husband will result in referrals to spammers, so watch out!) Mitch also has a family birthday today. What a coincidence! Happy birthday to Sam, who assists us during our radio shows by fetching coffee and...
Peter Cook once again finds nuggets in Eason Jordan's past statements about the United States, CNN, and how Jordan has a real problem with misrepresentation. Jordan gave a speech in March 1999 to the Nieman Foundation, ironically titled "No Substitute for First-Rate Journalists." The speech gives quite a revealing look at Jordan's ability to prevaricate at ease to his audiences. For instance, here he speaks about CNN's coverage of Iraq as an adamantly independent operation, free of influence by either the Iraqi or US government (emphasis mine): CNN has had tremendous difficulties with the Iraqi government, a government that's accused me during my own trips to Baghdad of being a CIA station chief for Iraq. I feel lucky to have emerged alive from that. But it's very difficult working from Baghdad. It was during the war, and it continues to be today. Our view is, first of all, we will...
Hugh Hewitt got to Forumblog's Rony Arbovitz before CNN could and publishes Rony's confirmation of exactly what Eason Jordan told the Davos forum. In an e-mail exchange, Arbovitz makes clear that Jordan intended on telling the forum participants that the supposed targeting of reporters by the US military was deliberate and with full knowledge of their identity: HH: Did Mr. Jordan make his "targeted" remark in response to a comment by Congressman Frank? RA: I believe that Congressman Frank was dragged into all of this after the fact. Mr. Jordan gave us all a monologue that evolved from his personal experiences in Iraq about this idea of U.S. soldiers targeting U.S. and foreign journalists. I first challenged Mr. Jordan, and then moderator David Gergen (of Harvard's JFK School of Government) brought Frank in as a member of the U.S. government to respond to claims that shocked all of us. I...
Kevin McCullough picks up on something I saw myself in MS-NBC's coverage of the SOTU speech Wednesday night. After Hours with Joe Scarborough had a number of odd commentators invited to debate the meaning of the event. Some were heavyweight political pundits, such as Pat Buchanan, Robert Reich, and Mike Barnicle. Unfortunately, they also invited two -- two -- commentators from Air America, including the seriously deranged Janeane Garofalo. Garofalo could hardly contain her vitriol, even to the point where Ron Reagan got embarrassed and basically talked over her to keep her from making matters worse. I should have live-blogged it at the time, but I had put the computer away by the time she went to air. In the most intellectually and morally bankrupt display I've yet to see from the Left, Garofalo compared the ink-stained finger salute by new Congresspeople to a Nazi salute: The inked fingers in...
Hugh Hewitt has a notice on his blog that he will appear on the Chris Matthews show Sunday evening -- and he intends on making Eason's Fables part of the discussion. Be sure to tune in to CNBC at 6:30 PM CT. Hugh also alerts his readers that Chris Wallace at Fox things that Eason's Fables will make an excellent topic for his own Fox show at 4 pm CT Sunday, so tune in there as well. By Monday, the mainstream media may have Eason's Fables forced down their throats....
The blog Sisyphean Musings has contacted the head of media for the World Economic Forum at Davos, Mark Adams. Sisyphus got Adams to confirm Forumblog's testimony that videotape was taken of the forum where Eason Jordan spoke, and agree to send a copy to Sisyphus: First, big kudos to Mr. Adams for the quick response! Please pass the word that I'm working this with him so please do not flood him with requests. Second, he has confirmed that he has the video. He needs to make a copy. I have asked for it to be mailed to me by Wednesday next week. I'll update this post as more information becomes available. CNN has until Wednesday at the latest to come clean about Jordan. If they allow the blogosphere to get to the finish line first, they're toast. And not just CNN, either; the major media have all gone AWOL over...
General James Mattis, commander of Marine expeditions in Iraq, came under domestic fire this week for his blunt and controversial remarks about the joy of war. His intemperate remarks roiled a nation obsessed with political correctness and image projection, even as his men defended his leadership: "Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." I don't think that General Mattis' remarks about the delight he takes in killing the enemy are...
February 5, 2005
CQ reader Rodger M. tips me to some correspondence that he has had with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Jack Kelly, one of the few members of the mainstream media who pushes back against these blackouts. Rodger have me a preview of what Jack will have to say: The scandalous remarks of Eason Jordan, CNN’s top news executive, last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (where Europe’s elite goes once a year to sneer at the United States), and the failure of the major media to report them suggest the distortions are deliberate. Jordan told a panel that the U.S. military had killed a dozen journalists in Iraq, and that they had been deliberately targeted. When challenged, Jordan could provide no evidence to support the charge, and subsequently lied about having made it, though the record shows he had made a similar charge a few months before, and also...
One of the classiest presences on film and stage passed away yesterday. Ossie Davis, husband to Ruby Dee and together two of the most visible campaigners for civil rights during those most turbulent years, died at 87 of natural causes in a Miami hotel room: Ossie Davis, whose rich baritone and elegant, unshakable bearing made him a giant of the stage, screen and the civil rights movement — often in tandem with his wife, Ruby Dee — has died. He was 87. Davis was found dead Friday in his hotel room in Miami Beach, Fla., according to officials there. He was making a film, “Retirement,” said Arminda Thomas, who works in his New Rochelle office and confirmed the death. Miami Beach police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said Davis’ grandson called shortly before 7 a.m. when Davis would not open the door to his room at the Shore Club Hotel. Davis was...
Democratic Governor Jim Doyle has repeatedly blocked electoral reform in Wisconsin and threatens to do so again if the state legislature passes a requirement for photo IDs at polling stations. Doyle vetoed the measure once before in 2003 and promises the same this year, even after the fiasco in Milwaukee last November in which an inordinate amount of people registered to vote on Election Day (over 30% of all voters). Now, however, Wisconsin voters may have another kind of reform in mind after the Journal-Sentinel revealed that executives involved in a controversial health-care merger gave Doyle over $28,000 in donations shortly after he allowed the merger to go through. Critics at the time wondered why Doyle didn't ask for common-sense economic concessions -- and now they think they know: Gov. Jim Doyle received $28,500 in campaign donations late last year, near the time a major insurance company merger was finalized,...
The Sunnis of Iraq, who largely boycotted the elections due to their loss of power after the fall of Saddam, have slowly begun reconciling themselves to the new power structure in Iraq after the elections. Stunned by the enthusiasm for their fellow citizens for democracy and in danger of complete marginalization, Sunni leaders have reached out for the lifeline offered magnanimously by th Kurds and Shi'ites: In a bid to avoid marginalization, a group of Sunni Arab parties that refused to participate in the election said Saturday they want to take part in the drafting of a permanent constitution — a chief task of the new National Assembly. "The representatives of these political bodies that did not participate in the elections have decided in principle to take part in the writing of the permanent constitution in a suitable way," a statement from the group said. The groups were mainly small...
Hugh Hewitt appeared on Chris Matthews's weekend show this evening, and fortunately loyal CQ reader Vayapaso caught the broadcast. While the transcript hasn't yet been posted, Vayapaso summarized Hugh's appearance: He was great! When each participant had to give a prediction for next week, Hugh named the Eason Jordan story. He told them the facts; that it is a big story on the Internet and new media; that it broke through with the Washington Times on Friday and will break big time next week msm. Mathews was surprised and made a comment that I could not completely understand but the implication was that Hugh's prediction was the big one of the evening. The cracks continue to multiply ......
February 6, 2005
Michelle Malkin and Mickey Kaus point out that the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz will host a live-chat event on Monday, noon ET, in which Kurtz takes questions from Internet readers and answers them on the fly. The questions themselves have to be submitted in advance by readers. Obviously, I'd want to ask this question: In at least two separate incidents (Jan 2005 - Davos and November 2004 - Portugal), CNN's Eason Jordan accused the US military of deliberately targeting journalists for assassination and torture. These have been documented at http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/. The sources for the Davos commentary are two eyewitnesses at the event, and the Portugal source is the Guardian (UK), which quotes Jordan directly. Jordan has also accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting journalists and claims a CNN reporter, Ben Wedeman, was severely injured as a result, when CNN's own producer, an eyewitness, reported on air that Wedeman got...
The Riverside Press-Enterprise, a newspaper with a conservative editorial policy serving the high-desert communities outside of Los Angeles, cracks the media blackout with the first MSM commentary devoted entirely to Eason's Fables. The editorial focuses entirely on the Davos commentary instead of the broader accusations made by Eason Jordan on multiple occasions, but it also takes apart the exceedingly inadequate attempt by CNN to spin Jordan's statement: CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, said Jan. 27 on a world stage that "he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops, but they had in fact been targeted," according to Rony Abovitz of the World Economic Forum's weblog. Problem is, Jordan has provided no facts to substantiate this very serious charge. Now the claim, which Jordan floated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is spreading through anti-American circles in Europe and the Middle East....
I'm not a Nick Coleman fan, but like other members of the Northern Alliance, I like to check in on the old crank just to keep an eye on him. Today I checked the RSS feed and found this summary for Nick's latest screed: Nick Coleman: Doctor's firing is bitter pill for her patients Pamela Cain is enjoying things she never had time to enjoy before, such as having lunch with friends. But she's not just breaking bread with pals. Her lunch mates are her patients. However, when I went to the page from the RSS feed, I got the Strib equivalent of a 404 message: The page you requested, http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/5224076.html, could not be found. It may have been moved; more likely it has been removed from our servers [emphasis mine -- CE]. Undeterred, but probably with too much time on my hands, I went directly to the Strib and...
I'd like to welcome Instapundit readers, especially those who have just come here for the first time. If you have not had a chance to read about Eason Jordan and his serial slanders against the US and Israeli militaries, you can find all of my work on the subject in the CNN category. That will allow you to read all of my posts on one page; my earlier posts have gone to archive now. I appreciate Glenn's reference as "Eason Jordan central," but I'd like to include a couple of other bloggers in that description. La Shawn Barber has done a magnificent job in keeping up with the multitude of links around the blogosphere that have created the massive momentum that will eventually break the media blackout we've seen. Hugh Hewitt has done more to push the story into the laps of the MSM than anyone so far. Keep checking...
Ralph Peters writes a passionate defense of Lt. General Jim Mattis in today's New York Post. Peters, himself a former Army officer, finds himself encouraged by Mattis' honest and direct appreciation for his job: Gen. Mattis may have been unusual in his honesty, but he certainly isn't unusual in our history. We picture Robert E. Lee as a saintly father figure, but Lee remarked that it's good that war is so terrible, since otherwise men would grow to love it too much. He was speaking of himself. Andy Jackson certainly loved a fight, and Stonewall Jackson never shied from one. Sherman and Grant only found themselves in war. WE lionize those who em braced war in the past, but condemn those who defend us in the present. George S. Patton was far blunter than Jim Mattis — but Patton lived in the days before the media was omnipresent and biased...
CQ reader Blanknoone decided to take Eason Jordan's Davos comments at face value and do some research to see if his accusations had any basis in fact. Bear in mind that I believe the issue with Jordan is not just his specific Davos comments but the repeated allegations of our military committing atrocities specifically targeting journalists, and his predilection for making those accusations in foreign settings where he can build his anti-American credentials while not facing any scrutiny for his lack of substantiation. However, Blanknoone's work in researching the issue through Reporters Sans Frontieres -- itself not exactly sympathetic to American military power -- is significant enough that I think CQ readers should read this as well. I'm posting the work verbatim, and of course my comments are open for anyone with further information that supports or contradicts Blanknoone's analysis. As this is quite lengthy, most of it will appear...
Continue reading "The Details That Destroy Eason's Fables" »
Putting aside the Eason's Fables efforts for the evening, I'll be live-blogging the entire Super Bowl spectacle. To kick it off (at 5:17 PM CT), I'll give you my prediction ... I can't see anyone taking out the New England Patriots. They beat the best offense (Indianapolis) in limiting them to one field goal. They beat the best defense (Pittsburgh) by scoring 34 points on them (and an additional 7 against their offense). The Eagles are good, but the Patriots -- they're unbelievable. My prediction: Pats, 41-24. My other prediction: no wardrobe malfunctions. 5:25 - Michael Douglas honors WWII veterans, a classy way to start the festivities. It certainly signals a better tone than the pseudo-sadomasochistic dance routine of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Now we see George HW Bush and Bill Clinton introduced; I wonder how many of those veterans want to see Clinton honored along with the people...
Cox and Forkum not only have this great cartoon, but a good recap that links back to a number of blogs, including CQ. Make sure you check in with them tomorrow to see what else they'll produce!...
The International Herald-Tribune reports on the continuing efforts of a small number of Democrats to flee the country for the sole reason that their candidate lost. While Iraqis brave bullets and bombs for the privilege to select their leaders by majority vote, thousands of sore losers can't bear the thought that others may have a different opinion than their own: After three months, memories of the election have begun to recede. There has been an inauguration, even a State of the Union address. Yet immigration lawyers say that Americans are not just making inquiries and that more are pursuing a move above the 49th parallel, fed up with a country they see drifting persistently to the right and abandoning the principles of tolerance, compassion and peaceful idealism they felt once defined the nation. America is in no danger of emptying out. But even a small loss of population, many from...
John Kerry did it again. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Kerry insists that his full military records have been made public, and challenges his critics to do the same, and George Bush as well: The furor over military credentials hasn't ended with the campaign. Kerry pledged to sign Form 180, releasing all of his military records, but challenged his critics, including Bush, to do the same. ''I want them to sign it, I want [swift boat veterans] John O'Neill, Roy Hoffmann, and what's their names, the guys on the other boat," Kerry said. ''I want their records out there. They have made specific allegations about my record, I know things about their records, I want them out there. I'm willing to sign it, to put all my records out there. I'm willing to sign it, but I want them to sign it, too." Kerry later confirmed that his...
February 7, 2005
PBS pontificator Bill Moyers, whose reputation always far exceeded his pedantic and leftist contributions, has made quite a mess out of his retirement. Moyers gave a speech at Harvard that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published as an opinion piece, celebrating an award from an environmental group. Instead of focusing on facts, Moyers flew off into left-wing fantasyland -- and slander: Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. The "ever-engaging Grist" turned out to have lied about this little non-factoid, and...
The NFL delivered a much classier halftime show yesterday than its MTV-produced fiasco of last year, choosing the more elegant option of just having a truly talented singer perform instead of the crotch-grabbing bondagefest that climaxed in Justin Timberlake's pantomime rape that "inadvertently" released Janet Jackson's decorated breast. Somehow this seems to have offended David Bauder of the AP, whose satirical look at the performances of the acts before the game and Paul McCartney during halftime makes clear his preference for less mundane fare: It was strange seeing the former Beatle, a bold and shocking performer for another generation, now presented as the sedate option. NFL censors were probably hoping the "California grass" reference in "Get Back" slipped by unnoticed, or figured people would think he was simply referring to a football field. ... The closest thing to a wardrobe malfunction during all the performances were courtesy of country singer...
The New York Times tries its best to hype up a controversy over veterans' benefits in the new budget submitted by the Bush administration, but the Gray Lady reveals herself as the painted lady for the Left instead. Robert Pear and Carl Hulse offer up this slanted look at the new budget under the headline "Bush Budget Raises Prescription Prices for Many Veterans." The qualifier "many" should raise eyebrows, although the reader has to scroll down to the tenth paragraph to discover what it means. Before that, the report uses selected quotes to imply that Bush has taken an axe to veterans' benefits: President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday. The proposals, they said, are in...
The mainstream media has spent another news cycle ignoring the Eason Jordan scandal, where he has been discovered to have made repeated claims of atrocities deliberately committed by US troops against reporters. CNN felt that Eason's Fables could be so damaging that they took the unusual step of not only e-mailing a statement to those who e-mailed their complaints, but also to bloggers who posted on the story but never sent a complaint to CNN. (We believe they worked off of Hugh Hewitt's link list on the scandal.) However, despite the obvious concern at CNN, they still have posted nothing on the story, not even their own statement. The Washington Post, where Howard Kurtz was rumored to have been working on this story, likewise has nothing on its pages or website this morning, more than 36 hours after it achieved national prominence from broadcast and bloggers. Likewise, the "Paper of...
I have written several times about my belief in the transformative power of democracy, and how giving a long-oppressed people the right to select their own leaders is the best defense against terrorism and the best offense against its origins. The Washington Post files a report that demonstrates exactly what I meant in today's edition. Douglas Struck writes from Baghdad about a new sense of civic pride and a turning point in the insurgency that all springs from the successful elections in Iraq: With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said. In the week since national elections, police officers and Iraqi National Guardsmen said they have received more tips from the public, resulting in...
Jay Rosen at Pressthink, one of the best media-related blogs, has done what the American media so far refuses to do with Eason's Fables -- act like a reporter and try to get the story. Jay tracked down the BBC's Richard Sambrook, who attended the Davos forum in question, and asked him what he remembered of Eason Jordan's remarks. Sambrook replies, in part: Eason's comments were a reaction to a statement that journalists killed in Iraq amounted to "collateral damage". His point was that many of these journalists (and indeed civilians) killed in Iraq were not accidental victims--as suggested by the terms "collateral damage"--but had been "targeted", for example by snipers. He clarified this comment to say he did not believe they were targeted because they were journalists, although there are others in the media community who do hold that view (personally, I don't). They had been deliberately killed as...
Michelle Malkin gets the scoop of the day by getting Rep. Barney Frank, the firebrand liberal with integrity to spare, to go on the record about Eason Jordan and his comments at the Davos forum: Rep. Frank said Eason Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military. After Jordan made the statement, Rep. Frank said he immediately "expressed deep skepticism." Jordan backed off (slightly), Rep. Frank said, "explaining that he wasn't saying it was the policy of the American military to target journalists, but that there may have been individual cases where they were targeted by younger personnel who were not properly disciplined." Rep. Frank said he didn't pay attention to the audience reaction at the time of the panel, but recalled that Sen. Dodd was "somewhat disturbed" and "somewhat exercised" and that moderator David Gergen also said Jordan's assertions were "disturbing if true."...
Howard Kurtz is in the middle of conducting his hour-long Media Backtalk live chat session. I and a number of CQ readers submitted questions on Eason's Fables. Will Kurtz break the silence? So far (11:23 CT), he hasn't. UPDATE: 11:34 -- Still nothing. He's talking about the use of anonymous sources instead. UPDATE II: Kurtz apparently refused to answer our questions. He's not the independent voice I thought he was. However, I have it on good authority that a major-city broadsheet is working on an Eason's Fables story. I'll let you know more later. UPDATE III: Will Collier tells it like it is: Anybody here believe that Kurtz didn't receive a single question about Easongate today? I sure don't--I sent half a dozen of them myself. You're a coward, Howard. Your silence, your outright stonewalling in failing to even mention a developing story about one of your bosses isn't just...
We are now finding out that the source for the promised videotape of the Davos forum where Eason Jordan alleged that the US military targeted journalists for assassination may never be released. Sisyphus, who originally got WEF official Mark Adams to promise its release, now says that it may be against the rules for that particular forum: He warned me that the session WAS under "Chatham House Rule". This means that after finding the tape, he needs to get a policy decision about making it publicly available, as that would violate the Rule. I have arranged to speak with him again 5:00AM EST tomorrow to check if the tape has been unpacked and if there has been a policy decision. Rebecca MacKinnon has more to say about the rules at Davos: On and Off the Record’ Policy for AM 2005 All plenary sessions are fully ‘on’ the record. All sessions...
This is the message I am sending to both Minnesota senators and my Congressional representative in response to Eason's Fables, urging public hearings into Eason Jordan's allegations. I encourage you to send something similar or even identical to your representatives as well. CNN executive Eason Jordan has on two occasions in the past four months accused the US military of targeting journalists for torture and murder. In a November 2004 News Xchange forum in Portugal, Mr. Jordan said the following (quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian): Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities." "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by...
Michelle Malkin scores coup #2 this afternoon with an interview of David Gergen, one of the forum moderators at Davos and the one who reportedly shut down the debate after Eason Jordan accused the US military of deliberately targeting journalists for assassination. Gergen verifies what Barney Frank, Rony Arbovitz, and Rebecca MacKinnon have already said about Jordan's comments: First, Gergen confirmed that Eason Jordan did in fact initially assert that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military "on both sides." Gergen, who has known Jordan for some 20 years, told me Jordan "realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that he had gone too far" and "walked himself back." Gergen said as soon as he heard the assertion that journalists had been deliberately targeted, "I was startled. It's contrary to history, which is so far the other way. Our troops have gone out of their way...
I have it on good authority that New York Sun reporter Roderick Boyd will publish a story on Eason's Fables in tomorrow's edition. Keep your eye on the morning edition. Mickey Kaus also reports that Howard Kurtz's long-awaited piece on Eason's Fables will run tomorrow. Kurtz is none too pleased with Mickey's needling about CNN keeping Kurtz's gonads in a safe at an undisclosed Atlanta location -- but after that pathetic performance in today's Media Backtalk chat, Kurtz has it coming in spades. UPDATE: Rodger Morrow notes that another witness has come forward to back up Rony Arbovitz's account of Eason's Fables at Davos. The original was in French, but Mick Stockinger translated it to English: It must be said that Eason Jordan, one of the star journalists of CNN, didn't mince words in declaring that the intentions of journalist in Iraq were never perceived as neutral and were made...
The Washington Post article on Eason Jordan by Howard Kurtz is now available. In tomorrow's edition, Kurtz focuses narrowly on Jordan's comments in Davos, allowing him to couch the incident as a perception issue instead of the consistent theme in Eason Jordan's overseas remarks: What CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan said, or didn't say, in Davos, Switzerland, last month has become a burgeoning controversy among bloggers and media critics. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who attended the World Economic Forum panel at which Jordan spoke, recalled yesterday that Jordan said he knew of 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. At first, said Frank, "it sounded like he was saying it was official military policy to take out journalists." But Jordan later "modified" his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger. . . . He did say...
February 8, 2005
Roderick Boyd writes on Eason's Fables in today's New York Sun and manages to scoop Howard Kurtz after working on the story only a few hours. In his report, Boyd discusses all three documented instances of Jordan's accuations agains the US and Israeli military forces and the corroboration of several witnesses at Davos of his latest outrages: The head of CNN's news division, Eason Jordan, ignited an Internet firestorm last week when he told a panel at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, that the American military had targeted journalists during operations in Iraq. Mr. Jordan, speaking in a panel discussion titled "Will Democracy Survive the Media?" said "he knew of about 12 journalists who had not only been killed by American troops, but had been targeted as a matter of policy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat of Massachusetts who was on the panel with Mr. Jordan....
Howard Dean finally manages to win a nationwide Democratic election, although he had to have everyone else drop out of the race first to do it. The New York Times reports that Dean is the last man standing for DNC chair after Rep. Tim Roemer dropped out: Timothy J. Roemer, the last of Howard Dean's rivals in the race for Democratic national chairman, dropped out on Monday, assuring Dr. Dean of victory. Mr. Roemer, a former congressman from Indiana, had been backed by the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, and had staked out a position as the most conservative alternative to Dr. Dean. Roemer didn't leave the race quietly, however: But as he dropped out Monday, he stood his ground. He said Democrats had allowed President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, to define the party's abortion politics, and called on Democratic leaders to become more inclusive. "Some...
The Israelis and the Palestinians will declare a formal cease-fire at their upcoming summit, ABC News reports, but a familiar tone comes from Hamas in response: Israeli and Palestinian leaders announced late Monday that they would declare the formal end to more than four years of fighting during the summit in this Egyptian resort. It was the clearest indication yet of momentum following Yasser Arafat's death, the election of a new Palestinian leader and a signal from the White House that it plans a renewed push for peace. "The most important thing at the summit will be a mutual declaration of cessation of violence against each other," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator. Erekat said the agreement also includes the establishment of joint committees one to determine criteria for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and the other to oversee the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from...
Mark Adams at the World Economic Forum in Davos has now decided not to release the videotape of the conference in which Eason Jordan accused the US military of assassinating and torturing journalists. Adams claims that no one contacted him to urge him to keep the tape private. I find it interesting -- and highly telling -- that no one from CNN contacted him to ask for its release. Do you think CNN could have gotten the tape released? I sure do. Why do think they want it kept private?...
Contrary to the desperate analyses from Western journalists that have appeared almost daily since the Iraqi elections, the most influential Shi'ite cleric does not want an imposition of Shari'a law. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani instead wants the government to follow parliamentary processes to codify a new direction for the world's newest democracy: A spokesman for Iraq's most influential Shia cleric has denied reports that the cleric is demanding that Islam be the country's sole source of law. Hamed Khafaf said Ayatollah Ali Sistani believes Iraq's new constitution should respect what he described as the Islamic cultural identity of Iraqis. ... In Ayatollah Sistani's view, his spokesman went on to say, it was up to the elected representatives of the people in the new National Assembly to decide the details. Mr Khafaf said the ayatollah had approved the current wording of Iraq's interim constitution, which states that Islam is a source...
Slublog's Peter Cook, who has done some remarkable sleuthing on the Eason's Fables scandal, finds out that Eason Jordan isn't the only CNN executive that spreads rumors about deliberate targeting of journalists for death by US military forces. Chris Cramer, who Jordan hired away from the BBC as CNN International's managing director, gave this speech in November 2003 to the International News Safety Institute (INSI) meeting in Budapest. Towards the end of the speech, he recommends a particular book for the journalists, Dying to Tell the Story by Nik Grower: I want to commend to you the very sad, very traumatic and very important book which INSI has backed from the start. It’s a first of its kind. A detailed tribute to each and every one of our colleagues who died or went missing. Important contributions from the freelance community. From the security industry. From Nik Gowing on the worrying...
The Northern Alliance will take over Hugh Hewitt's nationally-syndicated radio show tonight! The guys from Fraters Libertas will team up with Mitch Berg from Shot In The Dark for the first two hours, and then Mitch and I will talk to Bill Roggio from Easongate.com in the third hour and take your calls on Eason's Fables. Be sure to tune us in -- and if you don't get Hugh's show in your area, check out his website for links to Internet streaming. Don't miss a minute of it!...
CQ reader Ex-Democrat notes another incident of Chris Cramer echoing the allegations of his boss, Eason Jordan, in overseas settings. In a September 2004 interview with Businessworld India, Cramer spoke about the dangers that journalists face while covering conflict (emphases mine): But the profession is in trouble. Around the world, there is scepticism about journalists. Some even want them killed. This year more than 60 journalists have died in Iraq and we are just into August. Hilariously, Cramer in the very next excerpt describes exactly why CNN and the mainstream media is in so much trouble, while remaining clueless to the irony: There is no alchemy involved in accessing news. People can find it themselves. So what you offer them is your version. Plus, the Hutton Enquiry and some incidents in the US show bad journalism. So trust is down. Talk about foreshadowing; this comment came from Cramer in August...
Investor's Business Daily has an editorial in their issue tomorrow which calls for the firing of Eason Jordan, CNN's embattled chief. As the new blog Easongate notes, this appears to show that the momentum continues to build for a day of reckoning for Jordan, rather than the free pass he got after his 2003 admission of selling out to Saddam: Speaking last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jordan made an arresting charge. He claimed the U.S. military, while pacifying Iraq, had targeted both American and foreign journalists. ... That's when the bloggers stepped in, including some who were actually there. Then master blogger Hugh Hewitt took up the case. Soon the blogosphere was electric with outrage over Jordan's irresponsible charge. Now there's an easongate.com, tracking the scandal's every fact, every claim, every angle, and demanding CNN come clean. Why "scandal"? Jordan was spouting outrageous charges with...
February 9, 2005
CNN executives Eason Jordan and Chris Cramer have repeatedly stated in overseas venues that the US and Israeli military have a policy of targeting journalists for death or torture. Today's news provides the two with a real example of assassination: Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist working for a U.S.-funded television station and his son as they left their home Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi official said. Abdul Hussein al-Basri, correspondent of Al-Hurra, and his son were both killed in the Maqal area of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Nazim al Moussawi, a spokesman for the local government administration. Launched in February 2004 Al-Hurra, or The Free, was tailored for Arab audiences to compete with other regional stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. Some Muslim clerics have denounced the TV station as propaganda. You might expect Jordan and Cramer to jump all over this story, especially...
Mark Steyn, columnist extraordinaire for the Chicago Sun-Times and a number of other publications around the world, puts his erudition to savagely funny use in today's London Telegraph. Using the quirky story of an avalanche survivor as an apt analogy, Steyn perfectly describes the European response to Bush's expansion of democracy ... and gives a new context for the term 'European' as well: I was very moved by the story of Mr Richard Kral, a Slovak gentleman found staggering drunk down a snowy trail a few days back. He'd been motoring through the Tatra Mountains in his Audi when he got buried by an avalanche. Opening the window and frantically clawing at the snow, he grasped that he couldn't dig his way out faster than the white stuff would come into the car and bury him. So he looked around and his eye fell on the 60 half-litre bottles of...
As I predicted yesterday, the Palestinian triumvirate of terror still holds open their normal triangle strategy of using cease-fires as a cover for more violence, as key terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip refused to endorse the informal truce announced yesterday at Sharm el-Sheikh by Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon. Hamas in particular went out of its way to inform the world that they will not feel bound by the latest Israeli-Palestinian agreement: Officials from each side said the success of Tuesday's agreements depends on the other side meeting its obligations. For Abbas, that means persuading guerrillas to stop attacks on Israelis and ensuring that Palestinian security agencies work to help prevent such attacks. For Sharon, it means an end to assassinations of militants, military incursions into Palestinian cities and destruction of Palestinians' homes. But while Abbas committed the Palestinian Authority to refrain from violence, the two...
Chris Cramer, managing editor of CNN's International news division and a chief lieutenant of Eason Jordan, has made similar allegations about the military targeting journalists as his boss, as outlined here earlier and on Slublog. Alert CQ reader David D remembered Cramer from a famous hostage-rescue case in London in 1980, and pointed the way to other inflammatory comments Cramer made towards the men who rescued the hostages. On April 11, 1980, six armed Iranians opposed to the rule of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini invaded the Iranian embassy in London, taking everyone inside hostage for a six-day siege. Two of the hostages were BBC reporter Chris Cramer and his partner and soundman, Sim Harris: The hostages were mainly Iranian embassy staff, but also included a number of tourists and two BBC employees - journalist Chris Cramer and sound recordist Sim Harris - who had stopped by to pick up visas....
The Baron did more investigating of Nik Gowing, whose book Dying To Tell The Story appears to have prompted Eason Jordan and Chris Cramer, executives at CNN, to issue multiple unsubstantiated allegations of deliberate targeting by US and Israeli militaries of journalists in war zones as policy. Baron found this sample from the book, a lengthy essay written by Gowing to summarize the arguments he presents. From the start, Gowing makes clear that he has no intention of using temperate rhetoric to make his case: There is a growing fear in our business that some governments – especially the most militarily sophisticated like the US and Israel – are sanctioning the active targeting of journalists in war zones in order to shut down what we are there to do – to bear witness and report what they are doing. The fear is that an apparent culture of impunity by at...
Brave Sir Dayton has again beat a very brave retreat from Washington DC, this time in a metaphoric sense, as he abruptly announced that he will not seek re-election in 2006, more than eighteen months away: Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said today that he will not run for re-election in 2006. Dayton made the announcement this afternoon in a telephone conference call with reporters. "I do not believe that I am the best candidate to lead the DFL Party to victory next year,'' Dayton said. No kidding. Even the DFL has started to come around to that realization. Late last month, Dayton's approval rating in the always-generous Minnesota Poll retreated faster than Dayton himself last October from DC. He lost 15 points, even among Democrats and their Twin Cities power base. His positive rating came in five points below what George Bush had just received in the last election in...
CQ reader Jim W informs me that Brit Hume spent five minutes on Fox's prime-time news broadcast covering Eason's Fables, bringing the subject up for the second night in a row. Hume had Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, and Charles Krauthammer batting Jordan around, and Jim reports the general gist of it: Kondracke, no sympathy -- opener and money quote -- "Jordan doesn't have tenure coverage like Churchill." Liasson, largely negative on Jordan Krauthammer demolishes Jordan Hume doesn't offer Jordan any way out Kondracke closes comments and accentuates the negative conclusion Jim: "All mentioned the Liberal records of Frank and Dodd, that they were extremely upset by the coments and that '...they don't lie.'" As soon as I see a transcript on this, I'll review it. Right now we're standing in for Hugh Hewitt's radio show, and we'll be touching on this again tonight! UPDATE: Johnny Dollar's Place has a transcript...
Joe Scarborough weighed in on Eason's Fables for the first time on his blog after making it a featured topic on his show earlier. Scarborough calls for Eason Jordan to either name names and present the evidence for his allegations, or get fired by CNN: There is a cancer growing at CNN, and it's time it got cut out. It's time for the real deal. ... One of the top news executives in America spent his time before some of the most influential people on the planet telling them that American men and women deliberately targeted journalists for assassination. Democratic Congressman Barney Frank told Michelle Malkin that after Jordan made the statements, he was so troubled that he tried to get specific examples from Jordan. But Jordan refused to provide an ounce of proof to support his outrageous charge. I'm delighted to see Scarborough quote Michelle Malkin, who has led...
Our local NBC affiliate included the Northern Alliance Radio gang in a news feature for its broadcast tonight on bloggers in general. Rocket Man and Big Trunk get lots of interview time, along with a few other local bloggers, and we get a couple of moments in the booth doing our radio show (filmed three weeks ago or so). It's actually a good, balanced piece on blogging in general, one that won't insult your intelligence. If you don't live in the Twin Cities or you missed it, the entire piece can be viewed on the KARE-11 website....
February 10, 2005
Unlike the Wall Street Journal, where an editor witnessed Eason Jordan's Davos commentary and waited two weeks to issue a dismissive report, Townhall remains on top of all developments in the Eason's Fables scandal. Today, Marvin Olasky contrasts the wan efforts of Bret Stephens by checking Lexis-Nexis instead of Google and discovering a strange imbalance in media response to journalistic scandal: In January and early February, four American journalists came under fire to various degrees, as indicated by the number of Lexis-Nexis mentions during the month beginning Jan. 8: Armstrong Williams, 1,133; Maggie Gallagher, 238; Michael McManus, 43; Eason Jordan, 12. ... Bloggers have reported the story extensively, often accusing Jordan of giving aid and comfort to terrorists and their appeasers. This is the type of story that's harder to cover than one in which dollars clearly change hands, but it may be a more subtle form of bribery. Fox...
Bill Clinton opened his presidential library to great fanfare, with a big media splash and predictions of how it would draw large numbers of people eager to relive the supposedly heady days of light and magic of his presidency. So far, the Washington Times reports, those predictions have gone bust, with one notable exception: Although the library originally said it had drawn more than 100,000 visitors in the first six weeks of its opening, the National Archives and Records Administration, which operates the library, told U.S. News & World Report that only 42,045 visitors actually paid the $7 to enter. The rest of the visitors were VIPs, journalists and other nonpaying guests. Although Clinton supporters predicted that 50,000 persons would attend the star-studded Nov. 18 dedication, where actors Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt mingled with the locals, the true number was closer to 20,000, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette....
The news about Eason Jordan's remarks at Davos continues to break into the mainstream news media, and not just in the op-ed sections to which it had been limited. Today, the Miami Herald covers the story in its TV section, explaining how bloggers can work in positive ways to bring news to light (via La Shawn Barber at Easongate): Abovitz's account of remarks he heard from Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, during a panel discussion at an economic conference in Switzerland have not only rocketed around the Internet, but triggered fierce attacks on CNN from mainstream media critics. They've also touched off another major credibility crisis for television news, still reeling from the scandal over a botched preelection CBS report on President Bush's military service. And they've demonstrated the new power of the independent Internet diaries known as Web logs, or blogs. Jordan's remarks -- which he says were...
In an announcement that surprises no one, the North Koreans told the world that they have built nuclear weapons and plan on keeping them, on order to keep the "freedom and democracy" that their subject have "chosen" alive from the dangers of the Bush administration: "We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. ... North Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. It said Washington's alleged attempt to topple the North's regime "compels us to take a measure to bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom and democracy chosen by its people." The AP reports that the Kim regime had admitted in private...
Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal writes an odd little entry in the Eason's Fables sweepstakes that finally seems to have gathered some media interest. Stephens witnessed Jordan's commentary at Davos and confirms what Rony Arbovitz, Rebecca MacKinnon, and Justin Vaisse reported about Jordan's slanders. However, Stephens doesn't bother to name any of them and treats the entire issue as a tempest in a teapot: By chance, I was in the audience of the World Economic Forum's panel discussion where Mr. Jordan spoke. What happened was this: Mr. Jordan observed that of the 60-odd journalists killed in Iraq, 12 had been targeted and killed by coalition forces. He then offered a story of an unnamed Al-Jazeera journalist who had been "tortured for weeks" at Abu Ghraib, made to eat his shoes, and called "Al-Jazeera boy" by his American captors. Here Rep. Barney Frank, also a member of the panel,...
Dread Pundit Bluto notes today that Eason Jordan's utter silence on the withheld videotape from the Davos forum not only strongly suggests that he has lied about his statements at the WEF forum, but that his journalistic ethics demonstrate a remarkable elasticity. In 2002, CNN aired excerpts of an Osama bin Laden interview conducted by al-Jazeera, which caused the Arabian broadcaster to threaten their partnership with CNN. Eason Jordan took the opportunity to school AJ on the niceties of journalistic practice: "It's a shame that it came to that," CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan said, "but once the tape came into our hands, it would have been journalistically irresponsible to ignore it." ... "I think Al-Jazeera has some tough questions to answer" as to why it never made the tape public, Jordan said. What a difference proximity makes! Now we have Eason Jordan on videotape, pontificating about journalist safety...
It didn't take long for the Palestinians to live down to my predictions. While I had expected a few days for the newly-minted cease-fire to settle in, Hamas had already set a major mortar attack into action. The Jerusalem Post reports on the hail of mortars and Kassam rockets that hit Israeli targets in Gaza: At least twenty-five mortar shells and Kassam rockets have landed on Gaza Strip settlements since 2:00 a.m. Thursday, hitting settlements in Gush Katif, southern Gaza, and northern Gaza, according to the IDF. ... Meanwhile, the settlers are claiming a total of 38 Kassam rockets and mortar shells have been fired at settlements. ... No wounded have been reported, but early Thursday damage was caused to one building and to the electrical system in one of the settlements. The Abbas government couldn't even hold a truce for twenty-four hours without Hamas demonstrating its power to disrupt...
Bret Stephens, who wrote a Wall Street Journal piece on Eason Jordan that mildly criticized his "defamatory innuendo" but suggested that his critics were in the middle of a meltdown, may have his own ethical issues to face. Stephens failed to disclose his own connections to the World Economic Forum and his access through an affiliated, exclusive club when he wrote his critique on l'affaire Eason earlier, according to the Dinocrat: Bret Stephens apparently did not see the significance of Eason Jordan’s comments, which were merely a “defamatory innuendo,” served up by the lower classes ... Was he just a clueless reporter on the wrong beat? Hardly. Mr. Stephens says this in his WSJ piece: “By chance, I was in the audience of the World Economic Forum’s panel discussion where Mr. Jordan spoke.” Well, whether he was in that particular audience by chance is not the story. Stephens has a...
What a great night for AM 1280 The Patriot, its fans, the Northern Alliance, and Hugh Hewitt and Peter Beinart! The long-awaited debate between Hewitt and Beinart finally took place tonight at the Downtown Minneapolis Hilton, where the guests enjoyed a delicious chicken dinner and the substitute radio stylings of the Northern Alliance gang of knuckleheads, filling in for Hugh for the third straight night. In fact, we wound up scarfing our dinners down after we finished the show so we could give our full attention to the debate, excellently and humorously moderated by our own Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson from Power Line. Who won? I give Peter full marks for bravery; as I complimented him after the show, I think he did as well as he could in a personally friendly but politically hostile environment. I have to give Peter full marks for passion and eloquence, and he scored...
The New York Times finally mentions Eason's Fables, although it appears only in a wire-service report that gives Times readers the Kurtz treatment. The AP reports on CNN's statement explaining that Eason Jordan feels misunderstood, although he accepts responsibility for the problem: Despite comments that may have left a different impression, CNN's chief news executive said Thursday that he does not believe the U.S. military intended to kill journalists in the Iraq war. ... CNN said that Jordan was responding to a comment made by another panelist that journalists killed in Iraq were collateral damage. He had intended to draw a distinction between reporters killed because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because someone mistook them for the enemy, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said on Thursday. However, Jordan did a poor job saying so, she...
February 11, 2005
After a presidency where he kept demonstrating his ineptitude on foreign policy, and a post-presidential career of personal diplomacy that has without exception proved disastrous to the United States, you would expect that Jimmy Carter would have learned that he has no particular talent for international politics. Finally, some light must have shown through, as Carter now acknowledges that he was dead wrong on Iraq's elections: Former President Jimmy Carter, who predicted that elections in Iraq would fail and in the past year described the Bush administration's policy there as a quagmire, this week ended 10 days of silence to declare the historic Iraqi vote "a very successful effort." "I hope that we'll have every success in Iraq," Mr. Carter said in a CNN interview. "And that election, I think, was a surprisingly good step forward." The Nobel Peace Prize winner's comments on Wednesday contradicted his September assertion that the...
The Democrats managed to reach a nadir in their fight to remain relevant yesterday when a group of senators demanded that President Bush force the GOP to abandon politics and leave their poor Minority Leader alone. Chuck Shumer announced that Bush faced a "new Democratic Party," one that apparently endorses the repeal of the First Amendment: Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid, and expressed regret that they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor. "This is a new Democratic Party," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference called to release a letter telling Bush to muzzle his "political operatives." "It says to the president, `You will not intimidate us'," said Schumer, who likened the attacks on Reid to political knee-cappings. This kind of petulant whining, dressed up as muscular politics,...
Jay Rosen continued to look into the media coverage and blog swarming on Eason's Fables in a post from last night, in which he debates the need for the level of attention the blogs have given the issue. Jay remains something of an EF agnostic, but he gathers an impressive collection of thought from both sides for his Pressthink blog. One point in which he links to CQ is the status of Bret Stephens in the story's timeline. Roddy Boyd gave Stephens credit for breaking the story in Boyd's piece for the New York Sun, but Jay disagrees: Bret Stephens put the news in an e-mail newsletter available by subscription from the Wall Street Journal, the Political Diary. It is not on the Web. The Sun reporter was incorrect: The Diary is not a blog. You cannot link to it. It comes to your IN box if you pay the...
Mark Dayton gave an interview to the AP which clarified his reasons for declining a run at re-election in 2006. Dayton confirmed that he has no stomach for the grind of the same kind of politics he displayed in Condoleezza Rice's confirmation debate last month, and would rather quit and go home rather than defend his record: Sen. Mark Dayton said Friday his low poll numbers and an expectation of vicious political attacks were factors in his decision not to seek re-election next year. "I certainly was not looking forward to the likelihood that on November 7, 2006, 99 percent of the people of Minnesota would think less well of me than they do now," Dayton said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There's no question the Republican strategy is to destroy you personally in order to defeat you politically." ... Dayton said that last month's poll by the...
In one of the most scathing editorials from a broadsheet on Eason's Fables so far, the Washington Times called CNN's silence on Eason Jordan's Davos commentary unacceptable. The Times calls for CNN to demand the release of the forum's videotape and stop stonewalling: There's also the unfortunate fact that Mr. Jordan has already changed his story. Initially, he said he was taken out of context. But when several accounts of his comments, including Mr. Frank's, suggested otherwise, Mr. Jordan said he hadn't been clear and that his subsequent retreat was in fact a clarification. As blogger Jim Geraghty has observed, these conflicting accounts suggest that someone here is being untruthful. Without a transcript of the discussion, it's a matter of "he said, she said." There is a video, however, which the World Economic Forum has refused to release. It's interesting to note, then, who's calling for the video's release: among...
Craig Westover reports today on a meeting between Hugh Hewitt and the editors of our other local broadsheet, the Pioneer Press. Hugh continues to press for the expansion of the blogosphere into a true partnership with mainstream media by breaking down the walls between the two: It was an informal discussion with a very specific agenda -- What is the best way to integrate the concept of blogs and blogging into the structure of the Pioneer Press? How might the Pioneer Press move forward to incorporate the “new media” within its current business model? How can the Opinion Page today, take advantage of the talent and resources available in the existing Minnesota blogging community? ... Clearly, blogs are not viewed by the Pioneer Press as “the enemy.” There is recognition that both the medium of the blog and the bloggers employing the medium are potential assets for the Pioneer Press....
I'm on the air right now, talking with Kevin McCullough about Eason's Fables. If you miss my interview, you can pick it up on Kevin's stream, as it will replay several times over the next 24 hours. Kevin is one of the few people in the media that really understands the blogosphere and what it means for information dissemination, plus he's just a great guy and a fun interviewer. Be sure to check it out!...
CNN announced the resignation of Eason Jordan this evening as CNN's chief news executive, sending "shock waves" through the news organization as the blogosphere has imposed accountability on the mainstream media: CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan resigned Friday, saying the controversy over his remarks about the deaths of journalists in Iraq threatened to tarnish the network he helped build. Jordan conceded that his remarks at the January 27 World Economic Forum were "not as clear as they should have been." Several participants at the event said Jordan told the audience U.S. forces had deliberately targeted journalists -- a charge he denied. ... The resignation sent shock waves through CNN -- with Jordan long admired by his peers, from executives to the rank-and-file. Jordan joined CNN as an assistant assignment editor in 1982 and rose through the ranks to become CNN's chief news executive. The moral of the story: the...
Now that CNN has solved its Eason Jordan problem, at least for the moment, the next question we must ask is who takes his place. One of the candidates for Jordan's job, especially considering the importance of its international service, has to be Chris Cramer, currently president of CNN International. Jordan lured Cramer away from the BBC several years ago, and judging from Cramer's public statements, a shared revulsion of Western militaries formed part of the mutual attraction. Cramer may receive less scrutiny than Jordan, but his track record looks remarkably similar. Several instances appear in my CNN category. For instance, Cramer gave this speech to the International News Safety Institute in November 2003, recommending in emotional terms a book by Nik Gowing called Dying To Tell The Story, a book which alleges a deliberate policy of assassinating journalists by the US military as a means of removing accountability from...
Not even the resignation of Eason Jordan will deter Howard Kurtz from minimizing the importance of his Davos remarks and ignoring Jordan's earlier slanders altogether. Kurtz reacts to Jordan's exit with yet another "misunderstanding" over the Davos forum effort, this time enlisting David Gergen to carry his water (via Michelle Malkin and La Shawn Barber): Gergen said last night that Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his original comments. "This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he's brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water." Note to Kurtz and Gergen -- please review these remarks, made by Eason Jordan last...
Chris Muir defines victory for the blogosphere: In the words of Michael Ledeen -- faster, please! And don't forget to read Day By Day every day -- Chris never has an off "Day"....
February 12, 2005
The readers of the Los Angeles Times finally got informed of Eason's Fables this morning, only after the two weeks of outrage in the blogosphere and later in the mass-media punditry forced him to resign. I wonder what LA Times readers thought when they read this: Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, who led much of the network's war coverage, resigned late Friday in the wake of contentious comments he recently made about journalists killed by U.S. troops in Iraq. During a Jan. 27 panel discussion in Davos, Switzerland, Jordan alleged that some reporters and cameramen killed in the combat zones had, in fact, been targeted, according to some observers in the audience. The World Economic Forum, which sponsored the panel discussion, has declined to release the transcript or videotape of the off-the-record session, which was titled "Will Democracy Survive the Media?" In a statement Jordan sent to his staff...
More than fourteen hours after the resignation of CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan for his unsubstantiated allegations of deliberate murder and torture against journalists by the US military, I decided to check if the Big Three broadcast networks had finally decided to cover the story. The result disappoints but does not surprise me at all. At MS-NBC, the only reporting of Jordan's resignation is provided by the same Associated Press report first published thirteen hours ago. MS-NBC does give the link a prominent spot on its home page, however, while at ABC a reader has to do a search to find another, later AP report by David Bauder. Both reports omit any mention of Jordan's earlier comments in Portugal in 2004, or the comments made about Israel in 2002, or even Jordan's own admission that he had sold out to Saddam, an admission made in 2003 only after Saddam...
... but we're having technical problems with our stream, which we're trying to correct shortly. This problem is separate from the one we're having with our domain, so keep checking back here and trying our stream. We think it's almost fixed! UPDATE: We have our equipment on line, but we're not sure if we're getting out on the stream. Any luck out there?...
In an interview with the Associated Press, UNSCAM investigator Paul Volcker took aim squarely at OFF program chief Benon Sevan, claiming that Sevan used his office to severely restrict auditors who could have caught the corruption in the $64 billion program: The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators. A U.N. auditing team, which was severely understaffed, said running the $64 billion oil-for-food program was "a high risk activity" and a priority for review. But Benon Sevan denied the internal auditors' request to hire a consultant to examine his office in May 2001 — an act top investigators of the program are now calling into question. "I think the auditors thought they were steered away from some areas," Paul Volcker, who's leading the...
February 13, 2005
I received two e-mails this morning in response to my characterization of Eason Jordan as a board member of the World Economic Forum, from CQ readers Alan Speakman and Gerry Ashley. Both questioned the post after double-checking my sources and expressing support for my work, so I took that quite seriously -- and found out that I had indeed mixed up the bio provided by the World Economic Forum for Eason Jordan. Here's what the bio reads: Personal Profile: Studies in Journalism, Georgia State Univ. Formerly, Assignment Editor, WXIA-TV, Atlanta; Radio News Correspondent, WGIG and WSBI, Brunswick. 1982, joined CNN: Asst Assignment Editor, national desk and later international assignment desk helping oversee CNN's coverage of the Falklands War and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; 1989, appointed to direct CNN's international news coverage; 1995 took on the added responsibility of overseeing the CNNI television network; 1995-1997, Exec. VP, Newsgathering and International...
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution takes its first look at Eason's Fables, and instead of actually investigating what the bloggers found out about Eason Jordan's pattern of attacking US and Israeli military forces, the AJC instead paints Jordan as the victim of a witch hunt. Matt Kempner paints a love note to Jordan on the eve of Valentine's Day and does a disservice to the AJC's readers by covering up the worst of Jordan's allegations (via Michelle Malkin, registration required for AJC article): A quiet man who helped turn the upstart network into a power that could outhustle big broadcast news, he was undone by his own words and the aggressiveness of another upstart news venue: Internet blogs. Pummeled online — and more gradually on TV and in newspapers — Jordan resigned Friday after a growing storm over comments he made about U.S. troops during a Jan. 27 panel discussion at the...
As the harbinger of the mainstream media treatment of the Eason Jordan scandal, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz continues to wear blinders to the overall context of Jordan's slanderous accusations. In his review of three blogosphere-related oustings over the past week, Kurtz again reports on Eason's Fables only in the narrowest sense, ignoring the other similar incidents that infuriated the blogosphere: In the case of Jordan, a 23-year CNN veteran, it was a single online posting by technology executive Rony Abovitz, after Jordan's ill-fated comments at an off-the-record forum Jan. 27 in Davos, Switzerland, that led to his downfall. The lesson, say media analysts: In the digital age, anyone can be a journalist. After Jordan told the forum that the U.S. military had targeted journalists -- and then backed away from the charge, though to what degree is very much in dispute -- he granted an interview only to...
The elections held in Iraq last month have resulted in a parliament where no one faction gained a majority, meaning that a legislative coalition will have to form in order to select the executives of the new Iraqi government. The Iraqi turnout amounted to 8.5 million votes, close to the estimates of 60% that came after the polls closed: The Shiites likely will have to form a coalition in the 275-member National Assembly with the other top vote-getters — the Kurds and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's list — to push through their agenda and select a president and prime minister. The president and two vice presidents must be elected by a two-thirds majority. ... The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance ticket received 4,075,295 votes, or about 48 percent of the total cast, Iraqi election officials said. The Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of two main Kurdish factions, was second with 2,175,551 votes,...
Howard Kurtz has a round-table on Eason's Fables on right now, and he has David Gergen, Bill Press, and Jeff Jarvis on to discuss the issue. I wasn't going to comment until it was over, but it's so ridiculous I have to live-blog it. 10:37 - Bill Press says that if General Mattis made similar remarks, no one would have cared. Is he out of his mind? 10:39 - Jeff Jarvis hotly disputes the notion that the blogosphere is a lynch mob. All we are, he said, are citizen journalists demanding the truth. 10:41 - Now they're talking about the Gannon/Guckert non-story. I note that Jeff tried to bring up Jordan's "history", but he got cut off by Howard Kurtz. I don't know if Jeff meant the other statements in 2004 and 2002 or his admission of selling out to Saddam in 2003. 10:45 - Kurtz cuts this short so...
Patterico, noted blogosphere critic of the Los Angeles Times, goes into enemy territory to deliver a measured and sensible criticism of the trade's method of handling corrections: Has anyone ever said something about you that wasn't true? Something that, if people believed it, would significantly damage your reputation? How would you feel if you saw that falsehood printed on the front page of the Los Angeles Times? Would it make things right if the paper later retracted the false statement — with a brief correction buried inside the paper? For some, this is not a hypothetical question. Just ask L. Paul Bremer III, Antonin Scalia or the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. ... Each of these false assertions damaged someone's reputation, and each ran on the front page of the L.A. Times. In each case, The Times later ran a small correction inside the paper — alongside corrections of trivial...
We got great news -- the transplant team has found a good pancreas for the First Mate. This pancreas has a five-antigen match for Marcia (six would be an identical-twin match, and two is usually good enough for transplant). The procurement team in South Carolina says the pancreas looks "absolutely normal", according to the transplant team here, and we were first on the list. Please add Marcia to your prayers, and include the family of the donor and his/her generous soul as well. I will be hospiblogging for the next several days if this all works out well, and I promise regular updates....
We're here at the hospital, where the First Mate has checked in and rests comfortably in a private room -- a rare treat at the Fairview University Medical Center. We're waiting for some pre-op tests to begin, like EKGs and perhaps an X-ray prior to surgery. The doctor told us that a 10 PM surgical time is a possibility, but that it may more likely be tomorrow morning before the transplant. If that's the case, I may elect to get a cot and stay overnight; we have freezing rain up here and I don't think I'd like to chance the drive home and then back again early in the morning. I tried connecting to the U's wireless network, but the reception was too dicey in the room. Fortunately, a NetSurf signal comes in strong, so I signed up for a month's access to their network. It goes for $29.95 per...
A CQ reader, Bekarach, contacted the World Economic Forum's Mark Adams about releasing the Davos forum videotape of Eason Jordan. Adams, head of media at the WEF, responded that Jordan's resignation effectively closes the issue of releasing the video: Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 7:45 AM Subject: Re: Query - Will WEF release videotape/transcript Eason Jordan? Firstly, apologies for not getting back to you earlier - I rather unwisely took a holiday after Davos, so havent been in the office 100 percent. As you can appreciate we have to operate too under very strict rules regarding the Annual Meeting, and such a situation has never before arisen in 35 years of successful meetings at Davos. More than half of the sessions that take place at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos are 'workshops' and interactive sessions, as was the case for the session attended by Mr Jordan. All...
Yesterday afternoon, I spoke with New York Times reporter David Gallagher about the blogswarm surrounding the remarks made by Eason Jordan at the World Economic Forum in Davos. We spent the better part of an hour discussing the controversy itself and the blogosphere's reaction, and Gallagher asked some tough but fair questions about my response. The interview forms part of the NYT's look at the implications of the blogswarm coming out in tomorrow's edition: With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months. In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at...
Short update: First Mate is feeling fine, and all indications are that she's healthy enough for the surgery. They will most likely do the transplant tomorrow, not tonight, as it's getting kind of late now (11:28 PM CT). Look for an update early tomorrow morning. I will spend the night here at the hospital, if I can get a bed or recliner in which to sleep....
February 14, 2005
Okay, so it officially began about a half-hour ago. I spent the night here at the hospital, and believe me, that's quite a trick. I managed a little sleep while the First Mate got next to nothing. At 6 am, the nurses came in and quickly prepped her for a 7 am surgical schedule, and God bless 'em, they did it courteously and with great care. We wheeled Marcia down to pre-op, where we played the usual game of Hurry Up And Wait. 7:00 turned to 7:30, which turned to 8:00, and so on. They finally got her rolling towards the OR at 8:40 or so. She felt pretty nauseous thanks to the pre-op medications they gave her, but overall her spirits were good. After that, I dragged myself up for a quick breakfast -- the food at the cafeteria is actually not too bad here -- and a much-needed...
Michelle Malkin, who is a CQ favorite as most of you know for many reasons, takes on the weekend's "lynch-mob" meme that the mainstream media is using for its Eason Jordan coverage. In today's New York Post, Michelle pulls no punches in telling the media elite that they have lost their monopoly on information, and that they fail to recognize real journalism when they see it: The resignation of CNN executive Eason Jordan last Friday night caused near-fainting spells in the journalism world. And now the backlash against the blogosphere — the legions of Internet citizen journalists who pressured Jordan to come clean about controversial remarks he made at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 27 — has begun. Take Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum, the organization for editors within the World Association of Newspapers, please. Mourning Jordan's decision to step down, Pecquerie...
I get plenty of e-mail every day, and while I can't respond to each and every piece -- it would take me all day -- I do read it all. Often, people send me tips or suggestions, offer constructive criticism, and occasionally correct my grammar. I also seem to be fairly famous among the families of ex-Nigerian potentates, for some reason. However, every once in a while, I get e-mail that falls into the ridiculous category, messages that spew bile instead of rational thought. What these mouthbreathers think they accomplish in sending this is beyond me, but for your amusement, I present to you Jerry M. Landay: Dear "Captain:" Your "title," a monument to monumental self-infatuation, is the tip-off to the nature of the loudmouth mentality that issues from the politico-narcissists who are now mis-identified as "conservatives." There is n o t h i n g "conservative" about you brown-shirts....
Just wanted to update everyone -- the First Mate is out of surgery and in recovery now, and the transplant looks like a big success. The surgery lasted a little over four hours and the doctors are quite pleased with the results. It will take until tomorrow to be sure that the pancreas is working, but they expect full function. I'll post more after I see her, and again, I appreciate all of your messages of support and hope. My friends David and Margaret spent the tough couple of hours keeping my spirits up and buying me lunch, and all of that really gets me through a long, long day. More later!...
Howard Kurtz reveals that not all pundit-payola comes from inside the Beltway. In his lead entry for today's Media Notes, Kurtz reports that the Democrats have paid advocacy journalists who failed to reveal their funding: Eric Wesson, a columnist for the Call, an African American newspaper in Kansas City, offered plenty of praise last year for the successful House bid of Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. "Rev. Cleaver," he wrote, "has the experience to get things done and getting people to work together, he unites people. . . . Rev. Cleaver is a master at getting others to see his vision and surrounding himself with role players to make the vision become a reality. . . . I admire his honesty." Cleaver's campaign last summer paid $1,500 to a firm called One Goal Consultants. And the sole owner of One Goal Consultants, according to state records, is Wesson. "I wrote out some...
Normally, I read the OpinionJournal every day, although I rarely link to it; I agree with most of what they write and don't have much to add. Imagine my surprise, then, this morning when they not only clearly demonstrate that they learned nothing from the Eason Jordan debacle, but also attack the bloggers who participated in holding him accountable for his actions. In their unsigned editorial, the WSJ lashes out at CQ and the rest of the blogosphere for driving Jordan out of his job: By now, everyone on the Good Ship Earth knows that this particular story ended Friday with Mr. Jordan's abrupt resignation from CNN. This has certain pundits chirping delightedly. It has been a particular satisfaction to the right wing of the so-called "blogosphere," the community of writers on the Web that has pushed the Eason story relentlessly and sees it as the natural sequel to the...
Don't you just love these dramatic headlines? The First Mate has just arrived at her room, and needless to say, she's way out of it. However, in speaking with the nurse, I found out that she's stable, her kidney function is excellent, and her blood sugar remains at a normal 114 -- without any post-surgical insulin whatsoever. It looks like a great indication of transplant success. I'll be leaving shortly, as she won't be waking up any time soon from either the anaesthesia or just normal sleep from exhaustion. I'll check in with her nurses tonight from home and stop by on my way to work tomorrow. Today ... was a great day, folks. Thank you for all your prayers and kind thoughts. NOTE: I had to post this when I got home, as my wireless connection disappeared around 4:30 PM or so. UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn, as well...
Thanks to a phone tip I received from a family member, I found out that Jim Geraghty of the National Review's TKS blog appeared on Jim Lehrer's NewsHour on PBS. While an official transcript has not been made available, the new Google video service has this from the closed-captioning of NewsHour (emphasis mine): at 52 minutes Are there bloggers whose motivation is really to attract attention to themselvess? >> [Jim Geraghty:] Like I said there are a lot of bloggers out there. I wouldn't doubt that there are some who thought this is a great way to attention to get traffic to my blog. I can't buy into this argument that this is one slip of the Tongue. At a conference in Portugal last fall he said that several journalists were taken to the Abu ghraib prison complex and tortured there. If he's got this kind of evidence for these...
I missed this story over the weekend, but the Environmental Republican and Michelle Malkin have called attention to it today. Philadelphia deputy director of commerce Mjenzi Traylor used the mayor's office to welcome a delegation of French politicians and activists seeking the release of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, and gave them ... liberty bells? French politicians and activists seeking a new trial and freedom for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal were welcomed in a Friday rally at City Hall and given replicas of the Liberty Bell. Mjenzi Traylor, the city's first deputy director of commerce, told the crowd of about 150 that he was there to "make certain that we are receiving the message that you would like for us to deliver to Mayor Street." Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, later called that greeting an "absolute outrage." In what had to be a lesson in...
One last update for tonight, before I crash out for the evening. I just got off the phone with the nurse's station at the hospital, and the First Mate is still doing well. Her blood pressure is up a bit, which is rather normal for her. Her blood sugar is still normal at 108, with still no post-operative insulin. The pancreas looks like it's working well, and everyone is delighted with the results. Hugh Hewitt had me on his show earlier tonight, after I called Duane to see if he wanted me for the Eason's Fables coverage. Hugh knew that I had been at the hospital since yesterday evening and wanted to give me a break from the story tonight, but I always have such a blast on his show, and quite frankly I needed the distraction. After making sure that I initiated the request, Hugh brought me on, and...
Mark Follman takes me to task for going hard after the Eason Jordan story while ignoring the Jeff Gannon controversy in today's War Room at Salon (annoying ad watch or subscription required). Follman calls me "high-riding" while noting my lack of commentary on Gannon/Guckert's outing by the port side of the blogosphere. It's a charge I'm starting to hear over and over again in my e-mail -- if you're dedicated to truth and justice, why don't you cover X, Y, Z? First off, I'm not a newspaper, and unlike Follman and others at Salon, I don't get to do this as a full-time job. In fact, apart from the blogads and the tip jar, I don't get much money from my enterprise. I have to work for a living, and so the time I spend on reading and researching articles is necessarily limited. I choose to spend that time on...
February 15, 2005
The Washington Times reports this morning that the Senate investigation into the Oil-For-Food program led by Norm Coleman will highlight much more active roles for Kojo Annan and Benon Sevan in the corruption than Paul Volcker's interim report suggested. Annan played a more significant role with Cotecna than Volcker reported: Kojo Annan, the son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, played a far more extensive role than previously revealed in a company that won a key contract under the scandal-plagued Iraq oil-for-food program, Senate investigators have learned. ... Cotecna, the Switzerland-based firm that employed Kojo Annan as a consultant, won a major contract to inspect oil-for-food shipments in late 1998. The company never disclosed the younger Mr. Annan's relationship in the bidding for the contract, and has insisted that his work was restricted to two African countries and never dealt with Iraq. But Mr. Annan, in a letter to Cotecna executives...
After the revelation that Bret Stephens used the Wall Street Journal's unsigned-editorial slot to issue an institutional (and anonymous) defense of his own work yesterday -- one that raised a firestorm of opposition among OpinionJournal.com readers -- CQ reader Dianne sent me some background on Stephens that may explain some of the issues at the WSJ. Joel Leyden wrote a valediction for Stephens for the Israel News Agency on the announcement of his departure from the Jerusalem Post (emphases mine): I have also heard the adage: "don't kiss and tell" and my father once told me "don't ever bad mouth anyone you ever worked with." And we all know that cops don't rat on cops and journalists don't bash journalists. It's a standing rule for which I am now breaking. As a "disgruntled former employee" I can talk, my colleagues at the Post cannot - due to fear. Fear of...
The Washington Times runs two opinion pieces in today's edition on the media reaction to Eason's Fables and the bloggers who pushed the story to the surface. First, in its unsigned editorial, the Times scolds the Wall Street Journal for its reaction to bloggers and their role: Add "salivating morons" to the mainstream media's growing canon of stupid things to say about the ever-vigilant bloggers. Steve Lovelady, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, the self-styled flagship of journalism, said this in the fallout of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan's resignation on Friday: "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail." Add also, as loath as we are to do so, the Wall Street Journal's editorial comment from yesterday that professional journalism, of which it proclaims membership, is much better than "the enthusiasms and vendettas of amateurs." ... Throughout the "kerfuffle," we have attempted to keep our...
I had a chance to spend a little time with the First Mate this morning before running to the office to catch up on some project work and make sure the building still stands. She was weak but alert this morning, and the staff at the hospital tell me they're very pleased with her progress. Because of the post-op steroids she received, her blood sugar levels went up a bit after I left, so she's on an insulin drip. However, this is a normal procedure after any pancreas transplant, and her blood sugars never exceeded 150. Normally, steroids would have sent her BGL into the stratosphere, into the 400s or even 500s. Her kidney functions look normal and her blood pressure has been very good, despite the excess fluid from the surgery. She's not feeling especially chipper, but I plan on reading to her a selection of the many messages...
The British newspaper The Guardian reported earlier today that the Sunni hardliners who called for a boycott of the January elections have now admitted the move was a mistake. Rory Carroll confirms that Sunni leaders now want to support the new democratic processes and hope that the new government will reach out to them as a result: Iraq's Arab Sunnis will do a U-turn and join the political process despite their lack of representation in the newly elected national assembly, Sunni leaders said yesterday. ... All three blocs have promised to reach out to the Sunnis, who comprise a fifth of the population but won just a handful of seats because of low turnouts in their areas. This will soon be tested as parties forge alliances and tussle for government posts, including that of prime minister and president. Secular Sunni leaders yesterday accepted the victors' invitation to participate, potentially draining...
I arrived here about an hour ago from work, after checking in with the nurses from my office. They told me that the First Mate spent some time sitting up and stretching out and that her blood sugars have been terrific. However, by the time I got out here -- after having walked a roommate through a minor housekeeping emergency back at the house -- Marcia mostly wants to sleep. So I'm sitting in the room, taking a few minutes to work on a column offered to me by a national publication and just keeping an eye on her. She's looking better every time I see her, and she's been conversing with me today. She's not strong enough to take phone calls and she doesn't want visitors at all besides me, but she responds well to my jokes (she's the only one who laughs at them anyway) and she wants...
February 16, 2005
The New York Observer reports this morning that CBS may be facing the nightmare it hoped most to avoid. Three of the four people pushed out the door as a result of the fraudulent TexANG documents used by CBS in an attempt to smear George Bush and tilt the presidential election have not only not resigned from the news division, but at least one of them has threatened a lawsuit, complete with subpoenas and full discovery. The prospect clearly has CBS rattled and stuck in limbo while they try desperately to negotiate the trio's exits: Five weeks later, the crisis is not yet behind Mr. Moonves. And far from resolving the problem of the network’s credibility, the independent report commissioned by CBS appears instead to be leading to a confrontation, with defenders of both the ousted CBS staffers involved in the debacle and top CBS management asserting two different truths...
The port side of the blogosphere has crowed over their outing of a conservative hack reporter that managed to get day passes to White House briefings. Jeff Gannon, the nom de plume of Jeff Guckert, worked until recently for Talon News, a tiny conservative outfit that hired Gannon without doing much checking into his background -- much to their recent chagrin. Leftists such as those at Americablog have focused on Guckert's sexuality to shame him out of the briefing room, a strange McCarthyite tactic for those who claim that all sexual matters should remain private. Now Men's Wear Daily reports on Russell Mokhiber, an associate of Ralph Nader and a political activist, who also manages to get White House daily passes and styles himself a journalist, despite representing no news agency whatsoever: The media watch-group Accuracy in Media charged today that a liberal activist and associate of Ralph Nader has...
Rami Khouri attempts to make sense of the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, in a massive carbombing on Monday. Unfortunately, as Khouri notes, the Byzantine nature of Lebanese politics after a generation of domination by the Syrians creates a number of possible suspects, most of whom will work overtime to frame one or more of the others: The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a massive bombing in central Beirut on Monday sends a loud and deadly message - but the nature, origin, destination and intent of the message all remain painfully unclear to many observers. What is crystal clear, though, is that this crime will send out important political ripples in at least three dimensions. The two most immediate dimensions are internal Lebanese politics and the Syrian-Lebanese relationship. The third dimension is the relationship between Syria and external powers - the U.S. and...
L. Brent Bozell writes about the blogswarm surrounding Eason's Fables in today's National Ledger, and he slams Eason Jordan for his unprofessionalism and compares CNN to Richard Nixon's White House. Bozell also castigates the media that ignores the central facts up to the present day, and cites CQ and myself as an authority: If these charges were true, they would make Abu Ghraib's naked pyramids pale by comparison. But they were wild and reckless accusations, which explains Jordan's subsequent, furious backpedaling and denials. Still, it begs the question: Why would a man whose profession and expertise was "newsgathering" make such wild charges without evidence? ... But then Jordan and CNN added to the outrage by refusing any attempts to release a transcript or videotape of the off-the-record panel discussion. What a spectacle: a news outlet always championing the public's "right to know" and crusading for "full disclosure" clamping down like...
Normally I wouldn't comment on singer Michael Jackson, but this post at La Shawn Barber's has me mystified. Apparently Jackson took ill this morning on his way to court and had to be hospitalized -- and Marian Medical Center had just the spot for him: I just got off the telephone with WMAL anchor Michelle Basch, who confirms that Jackson is staying on the same floor as the Pediatrics Unit. He’s staying their supposedly because it’s the most isolated area at Marian Medical Center. Oh, the irony is disgusting! Whose bright idea is storing Jackson in isolation with children? Why not just lock up Courtney Love at the Pfizer Laboratories while we're at it?...
I'm at the hospital today and plan to stick around here most of the day, as the First Mate is much more alert -- and more uncomfortable as a result. She's sitting up in a chair right now, reminding me to keep all of you updated on her progress, in fact. (Now you know the real reason I blog -- she makes me do it.) Marcia wants to get the digestive system working again so they can take out the stomach tube they have in for her medications. The best way to do that is to get up and move around, and she's about to walk about a bit for the first time. More later!...
CNN reports that the Senate investigation into the Oil-For-Food scandal has unearthed evidence that at least one UN oil inspector was on the take. Armando Carlos Oliveira worked for Saybolt, one of OFF's main contractors, and put over $100,000 of illicit payoffs in his pocket while allowing Saddam's regime to smuggle oil out the door: The Senate Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released documents alleging that the inspector for Saybolt, a Dutch company hired to monitor approved Iraqi oil shipments from 1996 to 2003, enabled Saddam's regime to sell $9 million worth of oil outside the program. "We have found disturbing evidence that one of the U.N. oil monitors -- the individuals hired by the U.N. to inspect the oil exports from Iraq under the OFF Program -- took a bribe," said subcommittee chairman Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican. Coleman named Armando Carlos Oliveira, 46, a Portuguese national, as...
I just received a hilarious e-mail from Danny Schechter at Democracy in Action, which wants to alert me to the vast conspiracy by Fox News to discredit CNN by attacking Eason Jordan. This mass e-mail has so many holes and fallacies in its arguments that it's hard to know where to begin -- but I'll just start at the top: Dear Media for Democracy Member, Er, no. Not that I mind seeing what they produce, but I'm not a member, nor have I subscribed to any of their services. CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit late last week amid a furor over remarks he allegedly made about American soldiers intentionally killing journalists in Iraq. Allegedly? Even Jordan admitted making the remarks; he just claimed that people in attendance misinterpreted them. Eight different witnesses verified Rony Arbovitz, including Rep. Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, hardly members of the Vast...
In a further demonstration of the folly of a UN sanctions regime that key nations undermined and UN management corrupted, the London Telegraph reports on allegations from a former Cotecna inspector that his fellow front-line co-workers often drank on the job and rarely did any work to stop the smuggling: UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday. In a move that provoked fury from officials of the Swiss firm Cotecna, an Australian former inspector detailed a picture of incompetence, indifference and drunkeness among the men acting as the frontline for UN sanctions. Yeah, that box containing Saddam certainly kept him honest, didn't it? Speaking of honesty, Arthur Ventham gave it out in spades to the Senate panel investigating the OFF corruption. He talked about...
Hugh Hewitt will have the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens as a guest during the show's first hour to discuss the Eason Jordan scandal and the WSJ's response to it. I've been critical of both the response and of Bret Stephens, so I definitely want to hear what he has to say -- and as a long-time fan of the WSJ/OpinionJournal, I'm bringing an open mind. So should we all ... Power Line and CQ reader Vayapaso point out that Tony Snow, one of the nicest gentlemen I had the good fortune of meeting at the Republican National Convention, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Please send him your best wishes and prayers at tonysnow@aol.com. We'll add him to our prayer list as well. UPDATE: Hugh posts his thoughts on his initial talk with Bret Stephens, and reading down through his site, I also see that Hugh's retracting his reporting...
Whether or not Syria plotted the carbombing that killed Rafik Hariri, the popular former prime minister who became a uniting force for Lebanon, his murder has generated a fierce anger that has created nationalistic outrage directed at Lebanon's longtime occupier: Sunni marched with Shia, and Druze with Christian, as the factions that slaughtered each other in the 1975-1990 civil war paid their respects as one. West Beirut's alleyways echoed to the wailing of mourners as Mr Hariri's funeral cortege snaked through crowds, showered with rice thrown in tribute from balconies. Sheikhs and smart business executives, trendy teenagers and frail pensioners all massed together. Christian church bells rang out and muezzins called from mosques as the cortege approached Mr Hariri's last resting place - a grave outside the vast, new Mohammed al-Amin mosque which towers over Martyrs' Square. ... While anti-Syria slogans were chanted by thousands who blamed Damascus for the...
Howard Dean started his reign as Democratic National Committee chair in style today -- silent-movie style, that is. Dean demanded a media blackout of a debate he held with Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, much to Perle's surprise: "DNC Chair Howard Dean has declared a news blackout of his appearance and requested the media not quote, record, and/or paraphrase his remarks," event coordinator Gabrielle Williams wrote in an e-mail sent to news agencies Wednesday morning. "We apologize for the late notice, but we were just informed of this request." Less than two hours later, Williams called to say: "We were told just a few minutes ago that it is now open" for media coverage. The decision to open Thursday's debate came roughly 30 minutes after an inquiry by The Associated Press. What gives, Chairman Dean? Perhaps a bit of reluctance to face the press from the new head of the Democratic...
February 17, 2005
In an effort reminiscent of Howell Raines' vendetta against the Augusta Masters Tournament, the New York Times editorial board appears to be on the verge of initiating a "Timeswarm", having its columnists focus on one target as a cause celebre. In this case, however, the target hardly justifies the puffery it receives and the Times' disproportional coverage calls into question its media blackout on the Eason Jordan affair. Both Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, in an odd coincidence, write columns on the national danger that Jeff Gannon/James Guckert represents. Guckert, you'll recall, worked for Talon News (under the nom de plume "Jeff Gannon"), a small-time and lightly regarded news service owned by a Republican donor and party activist. Whether or not Talon can be described as a "real" news service gets debated rather lukewarmly by people on either side of the issue, which lets one know exactly how seriously it...
The New York Times reports today that the European Union has resisted the Bush administration's efforts to get long-time terror group Hezbollah recognized as such in order to cut off its overseas funding. In a further indication of EU weakness on confronting terror, so-called "Old Europe" nations, especially France, want to open dialogue with the masters of Iranian terror efforts in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East: As rising instability in Lebanon increases tensions in the Middle East, the Bush administration is arguing with European governments over whether they should designate the Lebanon-based Shiite group Hezbollah a terrorist organization, American and European officials say. The United States is already stepping up pressure on Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's main sponsors. The American rift with Syria deepened this week, with suspicions that Syria might have been behind the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister in Beirut on Monday. ... In the...
Two major dailies today note the resignation of PBS president Pat Mitchell and the precarious state of the government-run television service. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times both note the question of relevance for PBS and how difficulties in getting outside resources force it to play politics to stay alive: It was no accident that PBS found itself turning to Elmo, the popular "Sesame Street" character, to lobby on Capitol Hill this week. There were not many options. Public television is suffering from an identity crisis, executives inside the Public Broadcasting Service and outsiders say, and it goes far deeper than the announcement by Pat Mitchell that she would step down next year as the beleaguered network's president. ... "The biggest problem we've got is the structure we've got," Alberto Ibarguen, the chairman of PBS and the publisher of The Miami Herald, said in an interview yesterday. "It...
Peggy Noonan issues a love note to the blogosphere in today's WSJ/OpinionJournal, one that appears to intend either a counterpoint to the two successive dismissals issued by WSJ editors this past week or as an olive branch: When you hear name-calling like what we've been hearing from the elite media this week, you know someone must be doing something right. The hysterical edge makes you wonder if writers for newspapers and magazines and professors in J-schools don't have a serious case of freedom envy. The bloggers have that freedom. They have the still pent-up energy of a liberated citizenry, too. The MSM doesn't. It has lost its old monopoly on information. It is angry. But MSM criticism of the blogosphere misses the point, or rather points. Blogging changes how business is done in American journalism. The MSM isn't over. It just can no longer pose as if it is The...
Yesterday, New York state GOP chairman Steven Minarik made a stupid remark about the Democrats being the party of "Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean,", as if the entire party could be characterized by the recently convicted terrorist abetter Stewart, who passed operational messages from Sheikh Abdel Rahman to his followers. DNC chair Howard Dean called on Minarik to apologize or resign, and Gov. George Pataki rightfully called Minarik's remarks outside the "realm of appropriate political discourse." However, National Review's Byron York reveals today that the main money man for the Democrats in last year's election cycle, George Soros, partially funded Lynne Stewart's criminal defense, raising questions of propriety and political damage to the candidates Soros once backed: Billionaire financier George Soros, whose opposition to President Bush's conduct of the war on terror caused him to pour millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, made a...