Benon Sevan Blocked UN Audits: Volcker

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 independent probe, told The Associated Press. "Our judgment is that the main office should have been audited. And that leaves the inference that perhaps the auditors were not encouraged to do the work. I think we draw the inference that it was at least suspicious."

What appears most suspicious is the level of oversight given to the OFF free-for-all. The UN's internal regulations require that programs have one full-time auditor for every $100 million of funding, a level which would have required 640 auditors at the current estimates of cash flow through Sevan's office. In 2001 alone, Sevan's main office in New York should have had 160 auditors. Only five auditors worked at Sevan's HQ that year.

Those five auditors didn't suffer from overwork, either; Sevan made sure they were well rested. Money for audits had to come from the programs which they audited. Therefore, the same managers who would have had awkward questions to answer about the results had to approve the audit expense first. Unsurprisingly, Sevan and his managers approved few audits, and towards the end none at all. He put them off once by telling Arthur Anderson -- another non-surprise -- that the OFF program would likely end soon and Sevan could not justify the $70,000 expense of the required audit. Instead, Sevan directed them to check on the Baghdad end of the program, which they eventually did.

This response came from the program's brand-new, $3 million offices.

Once again, we see the lack of accountability inherent in the structure of Turtle Bay. The UN has no real checks and balances; the Secretary-General should enforce the regulations, but Kofi Annan appeared too disinterested to supervise his good friend or to rock the boat of the program which gave his son Kojo a steady stream of income. When the Secretary-General doesn't manage the organization effectively, either through indifference, incompetence, or more malicious intent, no real mechanism for correcting the problem exists at the UN. And since the majority of the General Assembly represents tinpot dictators and kleptocrats who operate on graft and corruption (and depend on it), they resist the idea of kicking out someone who allows them to conduct their business the way they like.

The more that comes out of the Oil-For-Food fiasco, the clearer it demonstrates that the UN has become so dysfunctional that fixing it almost appears impossible. An old saying has it that people get the government they deserve, and the UN's rotten and incompetent management provides an apt example. The UN will never improve until the constituent governments actually represent their populations instead of the ruling crime families in their countries. And as long as the existing membership remains, the leadership we get will continue to produce Kofi Annans instead of true leaders that can be trusted to manage our money.

Northern Alliance Really Is On The Air ...

... 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?

Big Three Network Coverage Of Eason Jordan's Resignation (Cue Crickets)

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 had been removed by the US military he slandered.

The ABC/AP report does contain one nugget of interesting trivia that appears new:

After several management restructurings at CNN, Jordan actually had no current operational responsibility over network programming. But he was CNN's chief fix-it man overseas, arranging coverage in dangerous or hard-to-reach parts of the world.

Does that sound like a chief news executive's duties? It sounds more like an attempt at CNN to defend its credibility by applying a Les Moonves-like spin to Jordan's contributions. Oh, he didn't really run the news organization, no no no; he just worked on special projects, so you see, he couldn't possibly have biased our news coverage. I wonder if they can pull that off with Jordan, let alone Chris Cramer. Maybe no one is in charge of news organizations at all; people like Andrew Heyward, Dan Rather, Jordan, and Cramer just sit around their offices and the news holistically appears on your television screens.

At least those two networks acknowledged that Jordan resigned. CBS, strangely, has maintained its blackout of the story. The only hit on CBS News' website for Eason Jordan goes to feedback on an earlier, unrelated column about media bias. At CBS, they tell you what you need to know, rather than just report the news. Remember when we called for Heyward's resignation after Memogate and the Thornburgh-Boccardi report? This is the reason why, and CBS still hasn't got a clue.

UPDATE: Dinocrat takes a different slant on Bauder's cryptic revelation in the later AP piece, one that does indeed raise questions about why Jordan left CNN so quickly:

Captain Ed thinks that this sentence by Brauder is meant to communicate that Jordan, despite his title of chief news executive, was not really in charge of anything, but Brauder may have inadvertently committed journalism in his eulogy of Jordan. Prior to this dust-up about American soldiers torturing and killing journalists, Eason Jordan was best known for his role in slanting CNN’s coverage of Iraq to please Saddam Hussein and ensure the network’s access to that country. Jordan revealed his revolting work in his confession in the New York Times two days after the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad in 2003. Bauder’s description of Jordan’s duties as a “fix-it man” in “dangerous” locales overseas could well mean that Jordan was negotiating news-slanting agreements among CNN and dictatorships worldwide. Now that would be an interesting story.

Did CNN toss Jordan to the wolves to keep even more information from coming out about his efforts to appease dictatorships and kleptocracies? It's interesting speculation, and Bauder's reporting on his job description with CNN and Jordan's history seems to point in that direction. Perhaps CNN insiders will start talking soon.

The LA Times Finally Covers Eason's Fables

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 Friday, the CNN executive vice president cited "conflicting accounts" over his recent remarks as a threat to the news organization's credibility. In resigning, Jordan said he sought "to prevent CNN from being further tarnished by the controversy."

The announcement comes after a week when commentators and newspaper editorial writers joined the chorus of complaints among Internet bloggers that Jordan had made insupportable accusations.

Ned Martel never delves any deeper into the story than that, only covering what we all knew more than ten days ago. Martel never mentions, for instance, that Eason Jordan sits on the World Economic Forum board and could have pressured the WEF to release that videotape. Martel makes Jordan look like a victim of the WEF instead. Martel even notes further that "the furor grew beyond the reported mild gasps at the Davos session into a wider media discussion," in an attempt to make it sound like Jordan got caught up by mob hysteria.

I'm sure Patterico will be all over this story, and he should. Martel probably signals what the mainstream media spin will be on Eason's Fables -- poorly researched articles that deliver the minimum of details in an attempt to cast Jordan as a victim of blogger bloodlust. They're hoping that while they mention blogsites like Roger L. Simon and Easongate, their readers will remain too stupid to actually go check them out.

Unfortunately for the LA Times, that kind of thinking has proven disastrous. Jordan's resignation from CNN shows the Times' readers that their newspaper hid a huge scandal from them, and they will want to know why. They may wind up disagreeing about the extent of the issue, but they won't escape the conclusion that the LA Times participated in a conspiracy to cover up for Eason Jordan and CNN until the very last minute. And then they'll realize that Jordan's abrupt resignation and the ostensible reason for it -- to salvage a reputation on which no media outlet had done any damage -- makes no sense unless Jordan knew his whole defense was a sham, and one that was about to collapse.

The LA Times has learned nothing from Eason's Fables or Memogate. The mainstream media is in the process of a long, slow suicide, and while they may blame the blogs, the they are the true culprits.

When We Know We've Changed The World

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".

Kurtz Still Doesn't Cover The Whole Story

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 November in the News Xchange forum in Portugal:

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.

They could also check out this quote about the Israeli military, from an Eason Jordan interview at the News Xchange forum in October 2002 (NG is Nik Gowing):

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 truth hurts sometimes and it hurts both sides but it's a mistake to target the news media. We've had enormous frustrations in having access to occupied areas of the West Bank and Israeli forces on a number of occasions have shot at CNN personnel and in fact did shoot one CNN correspondent, he was badly wounded. The Israelis say they're actually trying to restrict our access to these areas and they say it's too dangerous for you to be there and my response to that is that it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if you didn't shoot at us when we're clearly labelled as CNN crews and journalists. And so this must stop, this targeting of the news media both literally and figuratively must come to an end immediately.

For Gergen and Kurtz to continue their deathgrip on the fallacy that Davos represents a single slip of the tongue on Jordan's part only demonstrates either their complete inability to research the topic, or their complete disinclination to do so. Jordan has made several thinly-veiled references to US and Israeli assassination policies towards journalists, apparently buying completely into Nik Gowing's unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Jordan's mistake this time was to get too blunt about his hostility towards the American military and his failure to substantiate his charges.

Kurtz does a better job of reporting the lack of media coverage of the issue, making Jordan's resignation a bit difficult to explain to media consumers:

Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of "defamatory innuendo," and the Associated Press moved a story. As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC.

One supposes that the editors of all the silent outlets have some tapdancing to do with their viewers and/or readers to explain how the chief operations executive of CNN had to resign over remarks about which they know nothing, thanks to their favorite news shows and papers. At least Kurtz reported on the subject ... once.

UPDATE: Matt Margolis has the internal CNN memo announcing Jordan's departure.

UPDATE II: The Anchoress also takes Gergen to task, as always, in excellent form.

Crossing The Jordan: What Comes Next After Eason Gets Eased Out?

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 the battlefield. Cramer said this:

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 trend of journalists who died at the hands of the coalition - in the crossfire - through screw ups - however you want to portray it.

"However you want to portray it" appears to be Cramer's motto for news management. Last September, in an interview with Businessworld India, Cramer continued his strange and completely unsupported allegations:

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. ...

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.

Cramer has a long and strange relationship with the British military as well. In 1980, a group of purportedly Iranian terrorists took over the Iranian embassy in London, capturing 23 hostages -- including BBC reporter Chris Cramer and his partner, soundman Sim Harris. Cramer faked a heart attack to get the terrorists to throw him out of the embassy the next day, but five days later the terrorists killed one of the remaining hostages. After the British commando team SAS debriefed Cramer, they stormed the embassy and killed all but one of the terrorists while saving 19 of the remaining 21 hostages. Operation Nimrod is widely considered one of the most successful counterterrorism operations in recent history.

Instead of being grateful for the SAS rescuing his partner -- who pointed out the sixth terrorist to the SAS as the Iranian/Iraqi attempted to hide among the freed hostages -- Cramer described the SAS in terms that sounds unsettlingly familiar to those who monitor radical leftists:

And I was released after 27 hours into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in London and two days later into a dreadful bunch of terrorists called the SAS, who were probably worse than the terrorists inside the Iranian embassy.

And four and a half days later, Maggie Thatcher, in one of her rare moments of triumph, deployed the SAS in broad daylight to storm the embassy and they rescued all but maybe one or two of the hostages. Two were murdered. The SAS conveniently took out five members of the terrorist group and forgot to take out the sixth. So that was my brief, humbling experience

Chris Cramer has just as much antipathy towards Western military organizations as Eason Jordan, and his public statements also show the same lack of restraint and substantiation as the erstwhile news chief. If CNN selects Cramer to succeed Jordan as president, then we have gained nothing. CNN needs to clean house at the highest levels and ask Cramer to follow Jordan out of CNN's executive offices.

We will watch their next move. We will not allow yet another serial slanderer to take charge of a major news organization without setting the record straight.

UPDATE: Rebecca MacKinnon looks at the future of media-military relations.

The Moral Of Eason's Fables (Updated!)

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 media can't just cover up the truth and expect to get away with it -- and journalists can't just toss around allegations without substantiation and expect people to believe them anymore.

I'll post more later.

UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who sent me e-mails and comments congratulating me and the many other bloggers who helped bring the truth to light about Eason Jordan. Bloggers like La Shawn Barber and the entire gang at Easongate, Slublog, Dinocrat, and all the others that I know I'm forgetting, as well as journalists like the incredibly courageous and intrepid Michelle Malkin, Jim Geraghty, and Roderick Boyd made all the difference in bringing accountability to the mainstream media. More importantly than that, they gave justice to our fine young men and women serving America and the cause of liberty and freedom in Iraq and around the world. Never forget that they were the target of Eason Jordan's lies and slanders.

Even to the end, Eason Jordan couldn't be honest about the entire incident:

"While my CNN colleagues and my friends in the U.S. military know me well enough to know I have never stated, believed, or suspected that U.S. military forces intended to kill people they knew to be journalists, my comments on this subject in a World Economic Forum panel discussion were not as clear as they should have been."

Jordan never addressed his comments in Lisbon last November, where the Guardian quoted him saying this:

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.

Jordan's track record, extensively detailed in my CNN category, shows that his performance at Davos was no fluke or simple misstatement. Jordan has a long track record of unsubstantiated allegations of atrocities by the US military (and Israel's) that only became an issue after the blogosphere finally caught up to it. His dishonesty reflects the increasing awareness of CNN as a seriously flawed news organization.

Why resign now? I believe that CNN saw the issue gaining momentum, not losing it, as many members of Congress called for an answer and the release of the videotape. CNN's executives must have pressed Jordan for a clearer answer or to produce the videotape. After all, Eason Jordan sat on the World Economic Forum's board, and presumably his request for its release would get serious attention. When Jordan failed to get it or even ask for it, I think CNN saw the writing on the wall.

Some of you asked where I was and why I hadn't yet blogged it. Well, ironically I was attending a live Hugh Hewitt event in Burnsville when we found out about the resignation. Hugh had me on the air earlier in the show to talk about Eason's Fables, and I went on briefly again for a reaction. Needless to say, the audience erupted in delight and disbelief, and Hugh told them to watch the news coverage of Jordan's resignation. The man who probably was the most responsible for the blogswarm of Eason's Fables pointed out that the networks, which had yet to address the issue, now needed to report the resignation of the head of a news organization for a scandal they never reported to their viewers.

How credible will their audience find them after that?

CNN isn't the only organization damaged by Eason's Fables. Unlike Memogate, most major news outlets ignored this story for two weeks while it gathered steam in the blogosphere and finally broke out through the punditry. The MSM may have taken a mortal blow, and the age of limited information availability has died along with it.

And thank you, my readers, for all of your encouragement and assistance. I always say that CQ isn't one blogger but a community, and a blogger without readers is a diarist. I think we all can take some justified satisfaction with our small part in changing the world tonight.

CQ On The Air Today

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!

Pondering Blogs At The Pioneer Press

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 would go so far as to say there is "excitement" about the possibilities.

That’s not, of course, to say the enthusiasm and insight is universal.

Craig wants to know what your thoughts on this kind of expansion are -- what forms it could take, what it would mean to the blogosphere and to the media, and the chances of its success. The Pioneer Press intends to "triple" its efforts here, reportedly, so the topic is hot now. Be sure to read his entire post.

Washington Times: CNN "Stonewalling"

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 others, Rony Abovitz, an eyewitness to the discussion whose account differs markedly from Mr. Jordan's. CNN and Mr. Jordan have not.

Is CNN stonewalling and if so, why? It's hard to believe that if CNN — and not just bloggers — demanded the video's release, the folks at the World Economic Forum wouldn't do so immediately.

The Times also criticizes the mediocre to nonexistent media coverage of Eason's Fables, naming especially the Howard Kurtz and Bret Stephens pieces as just a handy way to kill the story. Both writers took on face value Jordan's claims that he had backed off his statements when he realized he'd been misunderstood, but that doesn't square with the other eyewitnesses who have come forward, notably liberal politicians Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, both New England Democrats.

The only way to resolve this dispute is for CNN to press the World Economic Forum to release the videotape for public distribution for the world to see and judge Jordan's comments in context. Their failure to do so demonstrates far better than their silence the newsworthiness of Eason's Fables. (via Easongate)

Brave Sir Robin Cries About Politics To The AP

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 Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which showed his approval rating had dropped 15 points, to 43 percent, factored into the decision.

"It's hard to go into an election cycle and recover that public support, because everything you do is cast in political terms," he said.

Dayton gives quite an extraordinary statement in rationalizing his retreat, accusing the GOP of using the politics of personal destruction after calling Rice a liar on the floor of the Senate last month. Dayton regularly casts his opposition in harsh personal terms, but seems quite unable to bear the thought of defending himself on the same footing.

Dayton lost significant ground in this state, as shown by the polling, because of the way Dayton approached his job. His personal attacks on Rice did not play anywhere near as well as he expected here. Moreover, his flight from DC last October because of supposed security risks while all other 534 members of Congress managed to muster up the courage to keep their doors open gave Minnesotans a look into the same lack of intestinal fortitude that he displayed yesterday and today.

Along with the bizarre demands made by Chuck Schumer on behalf of Harry Reid yesterday, however, Dayton's political cowardice does not deviate far from the norm of his party. Once a formidable political machine, the Democrats have drifted so far philosophically that they cannot even answer a standard political challenge on voting records without crying "Uncle!" The defeatism that underscores so much of their foreign policy initiatives has infected their entire political thought processes, so much so that their knee-jerk reaction to any tough spot is to run away.

I thought I might retire the Brave Sir Dayton icon when Dayton left office, but it might remain as applicable after 2006 as now, if the Democrats can't grow up.

Jay Rosen Continues His Critical Look At Eason's Fables

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 freight ($3.95 a month.) ...

Apparently, Boyd of the Sun says Stephens of the Journal broke the story because most of the major facts are in there. But I think a story breaks when it becomes public knowledge, when it is subject to public discussion. An e-mail newsletter like Political Diary (which is not archived on the web, and cannot be linked to) circulates news among a limited group, not the public-at-large. That's the whole point. Such products are often sold as "inside knowledge," valuable because the material is not broadly known.

I agree. The Political Diary is basically a fancy listserv, and as such qualifies as publication in a strict sense. However, breaking a story strongly implies an element of broadcasting in some form, not just passing it along a select group of colleagues or clients. Think of it in terms of a stock broker who does a clever analysis of several mutual funds and finds a blockbuster formula for maximum investment. If he just tells his clients and goes no farther, has he broken the story, or merely shared some mutually beneficial background information?

Jay also wonders about the reasons why the Wall Street Journal sat on this story in terms of broadcast publication for two weeks, and uses my post from yesterday on Stephens' conflict of interest and lack of disclosure as an implied explanation. Several people wrote and commented on that post to scold me for attacking a conservative writer. I don't know if that characterization accurately represents Bret Stephens or not, and quite frankly, I don't care. The WSJ has a mix of reporters, editors, and op-ed columnists -- Al Frum, for one -- who don't necessarily match up with their overall conservative bent. What I do know is that Stephens had a conflict of interest on this subject that he should have disclosed.

After I first commented on his article, two friends and I engaged in a series of e-mails about the article in an off-the-record conversation. At issue was the strange, unnecessary accusation of bloggers like Easongate and columnist Michelle Malkin as being somehow mentally unbalanced for continuing to criticize Eason Jordan. I wrote them to say that I literally couldn't believe what Stephens had wrote, and speculated that he might have some connection to Jordan. Coincidentally, Jack at Dinocrat sent me the link to his discovery of Stephens' connections to WEF and Jordan less than an hour later, although it took me longer to post on it.

Stephens should have disclosed it himself, and failing that, the WSJ should have done so. The omission rightly undermines Stephens' eyewitness accounts, and we should demand better, not worse, of the WSJ on the basis of conservative values. After all, we're not the ones arguing moral relativity; conservatives believe in objective morality. The WSJ should issue a retraction and an apology, and Stephens should learn a lesson from it.

UPDATE: More in the comments section. La Shawn Barber also adds to Jay's discussion at Easongate.

The Party Of "He's Touching Me, Mommy!"

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, makes me laugh but should have Democratic voters crying tears of despair. What prompted this reaction from every non-GOP senator except Reid himself? The RNC published a thirteen-page list of examples that demonstrates Reid's insistence on obstructionism as a political strategy for the coming year. One passage in particular raised the Democrats' ire, accusing Reid of spending too much money on DC housing. Its inclusion was based in part on Reid's self-portrait during the Democratic response to the State of the Union address as a man of modest background and workingman ethics.

Reading through the entire document, something that the AP never bothered to do or report on if it did, almost everything in it has to do with Reid's votes, or the forty days of Democratic political idiocy that followed his elevation to Senate Minority Leader. In other words, it addresses his public policy, something of which Democrats appear embarassed and want kept quiet. I don't blame them a bit, but calling this "knee-capping" shows a level of hysteria and pusillanimity that confirms every worst stereotype of lily-livered Democratic inability to handle real crises.

The Democrats propose that Bush "muzzle" people from political speech simply because Harry Reid can't stand political heat. They regret not demanding silence from the GOP during Tom Daschle's reign. The same people who will elect Howard Dean as their chairman -- the same Howard Dean who told NPR that he found rumors of Bush and the Saudis conspiring to commit the 9/11 attacks "interesting" -- want Bush to stop the GOP from discussing Reid's voting record. The same politicians who endorsed John Kerry and defended his assertion that Bush and his team were "the most crooked, you know, lying group of people I've ever seen" now sob for the cameras when Republicans debate with actual facts and figures.

Peter Beinart told us last night that the Democratic soul of the party is still Harry Truman, who once advised people to stay out of the kitchen if they couldn't stand the heat. This statement by the Democrats prove that the party has left the Truman legacy far behind in favor of childish, petulant rants begging people to stop picking on them. If they cannot summon the backbone for politics and demand instead a squelching of dissent, then the Senate Democrats show their complete inability to handle both democracy and security, and their party should disown them.

UPDATE: Fixed "Majority" to "Minority" in the first paragraph; thanks, Mr. Davis.

After Further Deliberation, Jimmy Carter Endorses Democracy

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 Iraq elections could not be held by January and ended a period during which the Georgia Democrat's failure to comment prompted one critic to gloat about the election success "shaming him into silence."

Not only did Carter argue that elections should be abandoned, he also argued at the time that we should immediately withdraw from Iraq "as rapidly as possible". He predicted turnouts as low as 30%, with only Kurds and Shi'ites voting, and even yesterday still disputed the legitimacy of the election because of the Sunni boycott:

On Wednesday, even while lauding the Iraqi elections, Mr. Carter reiterated concerns about Shi'ite domination, telling CNN that "the Sunnis almost refused to participate and played a very small role in the most troubled and I'll say violent areas of Iraq."

He added: "Now the question is, will this be a Shi'ite-dominated religious organization formed as the next government, or will it be a democratic secular one? And will there be some way to encourage the Sunnis to come back in and participate?"

Interestingly, the low turnout of the Palestinian election (before Fatah changed the rules, extended the balloting, and stuffed the ballot boxes) and the boycott of Hamas had a completely different reaction from Carter. Carter described those elections as "free, honest, open and without any violence of any kind." The joint Carter Center/NDI report on the elections cast them thusly:

The January 9 Palestinian presidential election was a major accomplishment. The election was contested vigorously and administered fairly. Election day was orderly and generally peaceful. The process, organized in just 60 days in accordance with the Palestinian Basic Law and under difficult circumstances of the ongoing conflict and occupation, represents a step forward for Palestinian democracy. The successful organization of this election demonstrates the potential for the start of a new era in Palestinian politics and the development of representative and accountable governance.

So an election in which even the Palestinian poll workers quit in disgust over the rank manipulations by the only major party contesting them garners immediate praise from Jimmy Carter, while he needs ten days to decide whether or not the Iraqis held a legitimate election. It's hard to imagine that we ever elected anyone this clueless as the leader of the free world, especially since he seems so intent on reducing its size.

Gray Lady Kurtzes On Eason's Fables

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 said. He deeply regrets that he left the wrong impression, she said.

Jordan would not speak about the issue to The Associated Press, but issued a statement: ``I never in my life thought or meant to suggest that the military was trying to deliberately kill journalists.''

Christa Robinson then tells the AP that the issue is "moot" since the tape cannot be released under Davos' rules for that forum.

Well, that's what CNN certainly wants to believe.

The AP and the New York Times never bothered to report about Eason's Fables in November 2004, when he told a Portugal conference about how the US military captured and tortured ten journalists in Iraq, statements quoted by the Guardian. Nor did they inform their readers of similar allegations made by Jordan about the Israelis in October 2002, nor of a string of similar anti-military comments by Jordan's CNNi chief, Chris Cramer. Just like Howard Kurtz, the Times and the AP fail to trust their readers by giving them the full context of the story.

However, at least the Gray Lady's readers know about the comments now. Leaving the actual reporting to the AP says something about how the Times editors view the story, but they know they can no longer ignore it.

Hewitt Vs. Beinart -- The Thrilla In Minneapolilla

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 a direct hit on the crowd when he tricked them into a response by claiming that Michael Moore said we deserved 9/11 -- and then explaining that Jerry Falwell had actually said it instead. However, Hugh -- even with a viral infection that severely limited his voice -- owned the podium and the issues. Peter gets a bit too flustered and overreacted to the crowd response at times, but Hugh remained as cool as the other side of the pillow. The topic under discussion was the future of the Democratic Party, but Peter drifted into GOP-bashing, while Hugh kept the heat and focus on the Democrats. Hugh won, but Peter proved himself a worthy adversary. He also showed that he comes across much better in that formal debate format rather than the rapid-fire format of Hugh's show.

I had a chance to chat for a while afterwards with Peter, and although I won't address the specifics, I will tell you that he impressed me with his thoughtfulness and willingness to engage. Not too many people would be foolish brave enough to follow Hugh into enemy territory for a debate; hell, I know damned few on the right who'd dare debate Hugh at all. Peter spent quite a bit of time talking with me as well as a few others in the audience, and was really quite charming and friendly. I hope he enjoyed himself here in Minnesota, and I hope he'll come back to do it again.

For a blow-by-blow account of the evening, you have to read Bogus Gold's live-blog of the event. Aside from griping about not getting free drinks (you wish, Doug!), it's a great look at the debate.

Conflict Of Interest At The WSJ

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 relationship with the World Economic Forum that he did not disclose in his op-ed. He is a newly minted member of one of the world’s most exclusive clubs, the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a kind of YPO on steroids, featuring precisely 1111 men and women under forty worldwide. The Forum is affiliated with, though governed separately from, the World Economic Forum[.]

Dinocrat also notes that Stephens has just been admitted to the membership of this club last year. Eason Jordan sits on the board of the WEF, closely affiliated with Stephens' new club, in charge of the WEF's "Global Leaders Of Tomorrow Programme", which sounds as it it covers the YGL to which Stephens had just been admitted. It appears that Stephens didn't just happen to be at the WEF "by chance", nor one suspects at that particular forum. It's certainly a strange coincidence that Stephens kept quiet for two weeks after giving Barney Frank kudos for acting to defend the US military and delivering a mild rebuke to Jordan, while implying that Jordan's critics are somehow mentally imbalanced.

Did Stephens pull punches in both of his reports because of his affiliation with YGL and the WEF to assist a WEF board member? Undobtedly Stephens should have disclosed his connections to the WEF and to Eason when he wrote his opinion piece today. In that way, we could all have made an informed judgment as to whether Stephens acted as a spokesperson for his club, which has a stake in protecting the WEF and the reputation of its board members. One suspects that the Wall Street Journal might agree.

Triangle Play Opening?

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 events. In retaliation, Abbas fired his Gaza commanders for their failure to prevent the attacks, but Abbas may well run out of field officers by next week if that's the mission they must accomplish. Palestinians, especially in Gaza, overwhelmingly support Hamas over Fatah and Hamas now controls two-thirds of the electable offices in both territories. Abbas can't put Hamas out of business when the Palestinians so openly support the terrorists rather than the peacemakers. If he did, a civil war would erupt, or Fatah would simply put Abbas out of his misery to prevent one.

I give this cease-fire another week of attacks, and then I predict it will crumble under the same old Palestinian triangle offense, just like all the others. When the Palestinians want peace, they can have it. Right now they're choosing murder and misery, and they will get that instead.

Eason Jordan's Flimsy Journalistic Ethics

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 and accusing the US military of murder and torture, and yet Jordan seems rather unconcerned about the ethos of full disclosure in this case. CNN so far has declined to demand publication of the Davos tape, hiding behind WEF's characterization of the forum rules that they insist require all parties to agree to its release. Yet Jordan and CNN released relevant parts of the Osama tape without ever getting AJ's specific authorization to do so.

The irony continues, as an anonymous reporter with al-Jazeera explained why they didn't want to air the tape (emphasis mine):

A journalist with Al-Jazeera told Reuters that the tape was shelved because the satellite station did not want to appear to be too close to bin Laden.

"We decided under the circumstances at that time that airing the interview would have strengthened the belief that we are a mouthpiece for bin Laden. We decided against airing it," the journalist said.

"The interview was not that newsworthy. It was full of preaching and looked like a (Muslim) Friday sermon," added the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous.

Doesn't that sound exactly like what Jordan did in Davos -- deliver a sermon to the presumed faithful of the anti-American religion? Only when Rep. Frank stood up to challenge Jordan did he realize that he finally pushed his luck once too often. Now Jordan wants us to believe that he has been misunderstood, and that people like Frank, Senator Chris Dodd, Rony Arbovitz, Justin Vaisse, Rebecca MacKinnon, and even Bret Stephens are too dense to comprehend his meaning -- but he wants the videotape that would prove his assertion to remain private.

The final irony is that instead of teaching al-Jazeera a lesson in journalistic practice in 2002, the Arabs taught Jordan how to dissemble instead. As long as CNN remains silent on the videotape, we assume that Jordan's elastic ethics are also CNN's policy, and we judge their credibility accordingly.

WSJ Several Days Late And A Few Bricks Short

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, interjected: Had American troops actually targeted journalists? And had CNN done a story about it? Well no, Mr. Jordan replied, CNN hadn't done a story on this, specifically. And no, he didn't believe the Bush administration had a policy of targeting journalists. Besides, he said, "the [American] generals and colonels have their heart in the right place."

By this point, one could almost see the wheels of Mr. Jordan's mind spinning, slowly: "How am I going to get out of this one?" But Mr. Frank and others kept demanding specifics. Mr. Jordan replied that "there are people who believe there are people in the military" who have it out for journalists. He also recounted a story of a reporter who'd been sent to the back of the line at a checkpoint outside of Baghdad's Green Zone, apparently because the soldier had been unhappy with the reporter's dispatches.

And that was it--the discussion moved on.

That was it? Stephens makes no mention whatsover of moderator David Gergen's reaction, nor that of Senator Chris Dodd. Moreover, he then chalks the whole issue up as "defamatory innuendo," and claims that this is the main vehicle of media bias and not unsubstantiated allegations. Stephens seems almost as eager as Howard Kurtz to sweep the entire affair under the rug and to get back to business as usual. He even takes swipes at a couple of people to start his piece, notably Easongate and Michelle Malkin:

There is an Easongate.com Web site, on which more than 1,000 petitioners demand that Mr. Jordan release a transcript of his remarks--made recently in Davos--by Feb. 15 or, in the manner of Saddam Hussein, face serious consequences. Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in. So has Michelle Malkin, who sits suspended somewhere between meltdown and release.

Perhaps Stephens is nonplussed by Malkin and Easongate because they have actually shown some journalistic enterprise, while Stephens sat on this story for two weeks. Stephens witnessed the chief operations executive of CNN get up and accuse the US military of deliberately killing journalists and conducting torture on an al-Jazeera reporter -- and Stephens waited two weeks to write about it? Two liberal US politicians dressed down Eason Jordan in front of a global forum for making unsubstantiated allegations about our military, and Stephens never considered this news until now?

This column beggars belief. In the two weeks since Davos, Stephens has done no research into Eason Jordan and his track record of making wild allegations in the past, unlike Malkin, Easongate, and myself. He makes no mention of Jordan's right-hand man for CNN International, Chris Cramer, who has made similar allegations. Stephens Googled for "Easongate", found the resources, and instead of actually reading the material and the links back to solid sources on these issues, writes a facile and completely insulting piece that only advances the story to the extent that it confirms what everyone already knows about Davos.

And Stephens is a member of the WSJ editorial board. That makes me feel confident in their ability to react to news. Doesn't the Wall Street Journal pay its editors to keep up with trends and breaking news, not just in financial institutions and the marketplace, but in all areas of the news? It's reporters and editors like Bret Stephens that cause bloggers and columnists like Michelle Malkin to create public demand for accountability, because these journalists routinely abdicate their responsibility to keep us informed. Stephens wants us to simply accept that and move on, a disappointing message indeed from the Wall Street Journal, of all places.

UPDATE and BUMP: Bret Stephens actually first noted the Davos commentary and Rep. Frank's reaction to it in WSJ's subscription-only Political Diary; CQ apologizes for the misstatement that this was the WSJ's first foray into Eason's Fables. However, putting in a short blurb in a subscription-only e-mail listserv two weeks ago doesn't excuse Stephens from researching the topic now, especially since the people he disparages in this post have done excellent work in developing the story and unveiling Jordan's pattern of slanderous accusations against the US military.

North Koreans Admit Having Nukes

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 talks much earlier on that they had nukes, but the North Koreans kept it from public consumption, presumably hoping that the West could be extorted into keeping it quiet. The knowledge of their work and capacity goes back to 2002, when North Korea announced it had cheated on the Agreed Framework nonsense that the Clinton administration arranged with Kim, where Kim promised not to build nuclear weapons and we built nuclear power plants in exchange.

All this proves is the folly of appeasement, an option unfortunately forced on the Clintons by their friend Jimmy Carter, who sailed into the North Korean negotiations uninvited and dropped this Munich descendant onto the table. Tyrants do not willingly disarm; they need all the weapons which they can get in order to protect themselves from the people around them, including (and especially) their own subjects. To believe otherwise is folly, and as shown in North Korea, catastrophically deadly folly.

Hopefully, the EU-3 can take a lesson from this in their dealings with Iran. So far, though, it looks like they're trying to run the Jimmy Carter playbook as well.

Miami Herald Introduces Its Readers To Eason's Fables

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 misinterpreted -- were not reported in the mainstream media until hundreds of blogs had been buzzing about them for a week and demanding explanations from CNN.

''When thinking people, especially journalism professionals, say something like that -- that U.S. troops might be war criminals -- and can't substantiate it, you've got to follow it up,'' said Jack Shafer, media critic for the influential website slate.com. ``Blogs always seem to ask much tougher questions of a powerful media figure than Time magazine or The New York Times or Newsweek do.''

The Herald does an adequate job of explaining the Davos part of the Eason Jordan story, but perhaps more importantly, treats the blogs that covered it with respect. That kind of endorsement gives the blogosphere more credibility with the Herald's readers, which may increase the pressure on CNN to get that tape released. Jack Shaefer gets quoted again later in the article explaining how blogswarms may get bad press, but the reason is that blogswarm pressure the media to respond -- and that's not a bad thing at all.

Slowly, despite the efforts of Bret Stephens and Howard Kurtz, this story is making its way to the mainstream American audiences that Eason Jordan and CNN wanted to keep ignorant. Having a major daily cover the story as news rather than opinion will introduce competitive pressure for others to keep up -- and the media blackout will completely collapse, Davos videotape or no. All we need to do is maintain our determination and energy.

The Big Me Celebrates Alone

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.

By comparison, Mr. Bush's presidential library on the campus of Texas A&M in College Station -- which also has a presidential apartment -- drew 67,677 paying visitors in a comparable period in 1997, between Nov. 5 and Dec. 31.

In 1991, the Ronald Reagan library at Simi Valley, Calif., drew 69,152 paying visitors between its Nov. 4 dedication and Dec. 31.

However, the Times notes, one VIP in particular has made a point of repeatedly visiting the library:

Fewer visitors than expected have dropped by the much-ballyhooed, $165 million Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., since its November gala opening, but one VIP has been trying to make up for that: President Clinton himself.

"I understand he's here regularly," says Todd Scholl, director of marketing for Little Rock's Peabody Hotel.

And what does the former president do?

"That's a good question," says Mr. Scholl.

The former president recently showed up unannounced at a private reception at the library and has become so ubiquitous that a guest at another event this week approached Skip Rutherford, president of the William J. Clinton Foundation, and asked, "Is Bill here tonight?"

Mr. Clinton has been entertaining old friends in the museum's two-bedroom penthouse apartment, overlooking the Arkansas River. The apartment is also known as the "Executive Suite," and Mr. Clinton plans to spend an average of one week each month there. He used to bunk at his mother-in-law's condo before getting the new pad that his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, has not visited since November.

To be fair, Hillary has a job that keeps her in either Washington DC or New York most of the time, while Bill has a lot of time on his hands. Now that he has a new job with the UN tackling tsunami relief and rebuilding, he'll spend a little less time there.

But it says something about the ego-building and stroking that Bill Clinton requires that he feels he has to spend 25% of his nights sleeping at his presidential library. I can't recall that any recent president (if any at all) made a habit of regularly spending much time at all at their libraries. While they all raise extensive private financing to build them, most former presidents simply make their records available for posterity and return on special occasions for public appearances.

In fact, Clinton's attachment to his monument seems more than a little self-obsessive and somewhat pathetic. If the library is meant to represent his presidential career, he's giving the impression that the entire enterprise was less substantial as a means of directing policy than as personal therapy of narcissism. All politicians have that to some degree, but most don't cling to it the way Clinton has after his terms expired. Perhaps his friends should entertain the notion of an intervention to help him break his self-addiction.

Townhall Outdoes WSJ On Eason's Fables

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 is beating CNN in the United States, but CNN is No. 1 around the world and wants to stay that way. What better way than to kiss up to Europeans and Middle Easterners than by telling them what they want to believe about those awful Americans?

Olasky gives too much credit to Armstrong Williams, in my opinion; Williams actually sold his column out for propaganda purposes, and I have no desire to see him return to commentary. That unfortunately dilutes his defense of Maggie Gallagher, who just did some ghost-writing and pamphlet development for HHS, not at all the same. I'm less familiar with McManus' work, but his supposed sins wound up amounting to the same thing as Gallagher.

But Olasky hits the nail on the head with Eason Jordan, and so far as I've seen, uniquely so in any media treatment of the story. Jordan routinely makes these allegations overseas (as does Chris Cramer), where their global audiences have much more of a taste for anti-American rhetoric. Jordan understands that CNN needs to compete with the BBC for market share, and he's willing to sell out the US and our military to prop up CNNi's global credentials to keep the money flowing back to CNN and Time Warner. Unlike Armstrong Williams, Jordan is even willing to make slanderous allegations without even attempting to show any proof in order to suck up and perpetuate the virulent America-hatred in the international marketplace.

Mark Tapscott contributes to Townhall's C-Log, their own blog, and he stays on top of the story (Mark also reads CQ and comments frequently here). Yesterday, Mark noted several developments in the story, and promised to keep on top of breaking news. Keep C-Log in your list of resources as Eason's Fables gathers steam.

Northern Alliance Featured On Local News

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.

Scarborough: Eason Jordan Should Be Fired

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 the charge to get Eason's Fables from the blogosphere to the mainstream media over the past ten days. Without her efforts and her credentials that got successive interviews with Barney Frank and David Gergen, this might still be nothing but blog fodder. I wish Joe had given a nod to Hugh Hewitt who got the blogswarm started, but that's for the historians, if this finally makes it all the way to the front burner.

Joe even managed to get the entire story on Jordan, being one of the few media leaders who connected Eason's Fables to the Portugal allegations of torture:

There's more: Jordan also told an audience in 2004 that American troops had arrested and tortured journalists in Iraq.

But last year's charges, like those leveled this year, were not backed up by a single fact by Mr. Jordan.

But one fact is not in dispute: this CNN leader has defamed the honor and integrity of our brave men and women in uniform by reckless charges presented in the most cowardly way: behind closed doors in conferences packed by international elites.

If Jordan thinks U.S. troops are little more than hired assassins focused on killing journalists, it is time for him to name names. Otherwise his continued attacks constitute slander. I know troops in harms way in Iraq. I have heard their inspiring stories when cameras were turned off and their babies were sleeping in their laps. They believe are exporting liberty — not assassination squads.

He calls on Jonathan Klein, CNN's president, to force Jordan to produce his evidence or can him, in order to protect CNN's integrity. That may already be too late, and at any rate Jordan isn't the only problem executive with a similar track record of unsubstantiated allegations. Both Jordan and Chris Cramer need to get the boot before Klein can hope for a renaissance of CNN's credibility. (hat tip: CQ reader Donn B, and Dread Pundit Bluto also notes this story.)

Eason's Fables On Fox News (Updated!)

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 of the show. Here are some of the highlights:

MORT KONDRACKE [ROLL CALL]: Eason Jordan doesn't have tenure, the way our friend from the University of Colorado does. Why this is--he's the news director of CNN. If he knows of 12 journalists who have been specifically targeted by coalition forces, that is one whale of a story that ought to be on CNN. And the people, his higher ups on CNN, ought to be demanding to know why this, why he's revealing this off the record in public. ...

LIASSON: Yeah, but I agree with Mort. If he has evidence of this he should come forward. I mean, this is an explosive charge.

The best was Charles Krauthammer. I can clearly imagine him delivering this with his normal gravitas, and I suspect it came across as a devastating critique:

KRAUTHAMMER: And that's why everybody gave him a pass. And they wouldn't have a reason to lie about this. And that they were, obviously, genuinely shocked. And what was shocking was this accusation. So when I, the crime here I think is intellectual cowardice on the part of Eason Jordan. I mean, if he said this and then he tried to walk it back, he wasn't trying to explain it, he was trying to undo it. But then he says in a statement that has been released, he never has believed that American troops have deliberately attacked journalists. Well, if he doesn't, why is he spreading a rumor that he believes is false, malicious, libelous, and will endanger American troops? I mean, you don't truck in rumors like that. He essentially says, now he was just reporting what others are saying. If he thinks it's a falsehood, why is he repeating it? So I think that is the real problem here, and I think as Mort indicated, he did, he's admitted that in the past he's sort of covered up and suppressed news in Iraq because he didn't want to, say, endanger his employees. Well, if you're going to give our news shaded by Saddam Hussein and essentially censored, you ought to either get out of Iraq, or say it openly on the air: the news you are now hearing is approved by this regime, so everybody will know it's not honest news. There's dishonesty here which I think is the real problem.

Joe Scarborough is also talking Eason's Fables tonight, according to CQ reader Sheri T. He called for Jordan to come forward with the facts supporting his allegations of deliberate assassination policies or for Time Warner to fire him.

Beating A Very Brave Retreat -- Again

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 Minnesota in a losing effort. Responses showed that Minnesota voters had deep reservations about Dayton's hysterical flight from the nation's capitol before the election and in his equally hysterical rants about Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation debate.

His early surrender gives the Democrats two years left on his lame-duck seat, complicating his committee assignments. After all, anything with any visibility should be given to Democrats who need the positive publicity of their assignments for their re-election campaigns, especially with the Democrats in such poor shape in the Senate already. Dayton leaves the DFL plenty of time to develop a candidate to run against Rep. Mark Kennedy, who the cognoscenti feel has the best shot at the GOP nomination.

This time, Democrats, try to get someone who won't wet his armor at the sight of a killer rabbit.

Nik Gowing, The Philosophical Guru Of Eason Jordan And Chris Cramer

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 least two nations is already actively encouraging others to believe they can get away with targeting and eliminating journalists, or at least turn a convenient blind eye to the issue. More than ever, we are inconvenient eyes and ears who monitor and report what some in power and command would much prefer we did not.

There is evidence that media activity in the midst of real-time war fighting is now regarded by commanders as having ‘military significance’ which justifies a firm military response to remove or at least neutralise it. From the media’s perspective, the core guiding principles of reporting must remain accuracy, impartiality, objectivity and balance in a time of armed conflict.Yet if some worst case fears are shown to be justified, then on the political and military side some senior officials seem to view our 24 hour/7 day-a-week presence as a real-time military threat that on some occasions justifies our removal by the application of deadly force. Despite expressions of sympathy, the fact that journalists and technicians are killed or injured appears to be of barely marginal concern.

That mirrors almost exactly what Eason Jordan has said in Portugal in November 2004, in October 2002, and allegedly in Davos last month. It also sounds very close to what Cramer said in support of Jordan's claims in the past, and probably formed the basis of his enthusiastic recommendation of Gowing's book in November 2003 to the INSI.

Unfortunately, Gowing then goes into lengthy dissertations on several incidents, most of which have been reviewed and debunked -- some that he manages to debunk himself after using them as examples to support his thesis. For instance, he alleges that the US military killed Tariq Ayyoub because they wanted to take out the al-Jazeera broadcast station to keep Arabs from broadcasting during the invasion:

There is also the US air attack involving Al Jazeera’s office in Baghdad on 8 April 2003, several hours before the fatal tank shelling of the Palestine Hotel and the day before major hostilities ended in the Iraqi capital. During the pre-dawn attack by an A-10 ground attack aircraft, Al Jazeera’s correspondent Tariq Ayyoub was killed by shrapnel as he stood on the bureau’s roof preparing to broadcast live.

In the absence of a clear explanation from US CENTCOM, the overwhelming impression remains that the bureaus of both Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV not far away were targeted by the US during the critical hours before US ground forces finally secured the city centre.

Many anti-US activists have used Ayyoub's case to support Eason Jordan's argument at Davos. In fact, it's widely listed as one of twelve "suspicious" journalist deaths resulting from the Iraqi invasion. But on the very next page, Gowing himself explains what happened:

It eventually became clear that what was initially assumed to be a clear case of malicious US targeting was in reality probably more complex. The Al Jazeera bureau was located next door to a villa used by Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf , Iraq’s information minister who towards the end of the war became known as ‘Comical Ali’. Located between the buildings was an electrical generator which the US forces wanted immobilised in order to crank up the pressure on Al-Sahaf and the regime. Al Jazeera conceded later it was probably this equipment which the US had targeted and not the Al Jazeera bureau. However, without a full and frank exchange of details with CENTCOM, along with battle damage assessment, it was hard to be sure. Tariq Ayyoub was killed by shrapnel from the weaponry that hit the generator. It penetrated a small space under his body armour because misguidedly he was one of the very few Al Jazeera staff to believe the US military assurances made to his executives in Qatar the previous day that the bureau was safe from US attack.

So the US military didn't set out to kill Ayyoub, but instead attacked a government installation nearby, and the shrapnel killed the reporter. Government broadcast facilities certainly make legitimate military targets; destroying command and control functions is simply basic military strategy. Al-Jazeera must have known that the building next to theirs belonged to the information ministry, and anyone with a lick of sense would have gotten as far away from it as possible. Standing next to it in the open and posing for a live broadcast as any invading army entered would have been, and was, a particularly foolish act.

How exactly does this have anything to do with a deliberate policy of assassination? Well, Gowing argues that a lack of "openness" led to uncertainty of US motives. And in the world of Gowing, Jordan, and Cramer, that uncertainty constitutes positive proof of malicious intent. Gowing wanted the US to stop in the middle of a battle that was expected to produce desperate door-to-door urban combat and do a field investigation, completed with releasing battle-damage assessments to al-Jazeera, in order to prove we didn't assassinate Ayyoub.

Well, excuse us -- but we were in the middle of a war. We made plain our intention to attack government forces and assets within the city of Baghdad and its surroundings. People who continued to stand around or inside those facilities assumed the risk for doing so -- and al-Jazeera's proximity to that information ministry facility was not an accident.

It's arguments like this -- Gowing does the same thing with the ITN journalists who drove between two hostile forces and got killed as a result -- that demonstrate on their face the ludicrous nature of these charges. In order to buy this argument, one has to take it on faith that the US military operates under the worst possible motives at all times, as Gowing never provides a single shred of proof of any deliberate intent to kill these specific journalists for any reason. All he does is ask a series of questions as to motive, and the faithful are expected to fill in the answers for themselves.

If CNN executives find themselves under the sway of such tripe, one could make an argument that the news service has become a faith-based organization instead of a rational fact-finding media outlet. If that's what CNN wants to be, then Time Warner needs to rebrand its service and be honest with its customers (and advertisers) that the intent is to serve those who faithfully believe the worst about America at all times. If not, then Eason Jordan and Chris Cramer need to be shown the door.

UPDATE: Rodger at This Isn't Writing, It's Typing tells me I'm in the right church but possibly in the wrong pew. He notes a speech Gowing gave at the London School of Economics last May, which contains the same specific allegations that both Jordan and Cramer made lately. However, Eason and Cramer have made allegations like these all the way back to 2002, with more specificity to the US in 2003 after Gowing's book. Rodger's undoubtedly correct that Gowing's speech influenced the CNN executives tremendously, though.

Long History Of Hostility Towards Military By CNNi Executive

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.

Later that day Mr Cramer telexed a shopping list of demands to the police from inside the embassy. ... If their demands were not met the gunmen threatened to execute all the hostages and blow up the embassy.

The British activated the Special Air Service (SAS), their commando unit that had been under the budget knife to that point, in an attempt to free the hostages. For the first five days, the SAS planned but remained on standby while British negotiators tried to get the terrorists to surrender. Unfortunately, on the sixth day, the terrorists lost patience and killed an Iranian hostage, an embassy staffer and supporter of Khomeini. After the terrorists pushed the body out a window, the Brits sent in the SAS, which took the embassy back in 15 minutes, killing all but one of the terrorists and saving all but two of the 21 hostages.

Operation Nimrod, as it was designated, became widely hailed as one of the SAS' most successful operations. The SAS earned a reputation as one of the world's best counter-terrorist units and the British still point to Nimrod with pride to this day. Well, most of the British do. Cramer, who got released after the first day by faking a heart attack (on his own admission) and leaving behind his partner, doesn't think too much of the men who eventually rescued Sim Harris and the other 18 hostages. Here's what Cramer told a seminar of media editors for the Crimes of War Project in 2002 (emphases and break points mine):

I won't roll out the victim syndrome for you at all -- well, maybe I will for two or three minutes. My own humbling experience was 20 years ago last week. Not, of course, as I remember it. It was actually last Wednesday at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Not, of course, that I remember it because it has no affect on me. Tomorrow I fly to London for a reunion, the first in 20 years. And I'll come back to you and let you know how that feels next year, if you like.

My experience was very brief. I was stupid enough to apply for a visa inside the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980. I was stupid enough to be there when Iraqi terrorists stormed it. I was there for a very, very short time. I was there for precisely 28 hours. Not that I remember it, because I'm a member of your profession. We don't do PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].

I was fortunate enough to have a slightly troubling stomach condition, having been in Zimbabwe, which manifested itself in a very short space of time. It's a most incredible heart attack. And I do fantastic heart attacks. I do great heart attacks. So convincing with my heart attack that the people there were embarrassed and threw me out.

And I was released after 27 hours into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in London and two days later into a dreadful bunch of terrorists called the SAS, who were probably worse than the terrorists inside the Iranian embassy.

And four and a half days later, Maggie Thatcher, in one of her rare moments of triumph, deployed the SAS in broad daylight to storm the embassy and they rescued all but maybe one or two of the hostages. Two were murdered. The SAS conveniently took out five members of the terrorist group and forgot to take out the sixth. So that was my brief, humbling experience.

So Chris Cramer, president of CNN International and a former hostage of terrorists himself, appears to have gotten a lifetime case of Stockholm Syndrome from the experience. He considers British commandos to be terrorists -- actually, worse than terrorists, because they freed people from the clutches of murderous thugs. Had Cramer not faked a heart attack, of course, he would have owed his life to the SAS, but apparently his sympathies lie with the gunmen who caused him all of his PTSD.

Now the man who considers these British commandos to be worse than terrorists says much the same thing about the American military -- and CNN put him in charge of its international news coverage, including everything we and the world see coming from such places as Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder Eason Jordan hired him to run CNNi. With his twisted sense of judgment and his sympathetic ear for conspiracy theories, he seems a perfect fit for the CNN chief who likes to make up wild accusations overseas about the American and Israeli military.

These are the people who have given us the news for the past several years on CNN. Now you understand the origins of the bias that you see in their "version" of the news. CNN has a lot of housecleaning to do, and firing Jordan won't be enough to restore their credibility. Chris Cramer has to go.

UPDATE AND BUMP, 2/9: Cramer describes the terrorists as Iraqi in this quote. The research I found on Operation Nimrod suggests that he was correct, but officially the British maintain that the six terrorists were disaffected Iranians who opposed Ayatollah Khomeini. The scuttlebutt was that Saddam attempted to extend his war against Iran to London, although I'm not terribly clear on the motive. The British maintained diplomatic relations with Iran after the Islamic Revolution and our own hostage crisis in Teheran; perhaps Saddam wanted to shake that relationship.

Palestinian Triangle Offense At The Ready; WaPo Gets The Assist

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 most powerful radical Islamic groups -- the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, and Islamic Jihad -- have not endorsed his efforts, though both have scaled back attacks since Abbas was elected a month ago to replace the late Yasser Arafat.

Representatives of Hamas issued conflicting assessments of the summit, reflecting both continued debate within the group's ranks and the challenges still facing Abbas.

"We cannot accept it," Mushir Masri, one Hamas spokesman, said in a telephone interview. But Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip, told television reporters that if the Israelis "continue the quiet, then we are going to continue, because we are committed to Abu Mazen," as Abbas is known informally.

Molly Moore gets a bit disingenuous with that last part. Abu Mazen is not how Mahmoud Abbas is "informally" known; that is Abbas' nom de guerre, the pseudonym he chose for his career in terror. Abbas was a key member of the Palestinian terror group PLO and helped plan and finance the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972. Having the Washington Post treat the name "Abu Mazen" as some sort of term of grandfatherly endearment grossly misrepresents not only Abbas' history, but the meaning that Hamas deliberately implies in using that name for the Palestinian president.

If the Washington Post wants to keep its readers informed, their reporters should do their research and report honestly on the facts.

The refusal of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to back Abbas' bid for peace should have everyone seeing red flags. Moore reports that the Israelis, Egyptians, and Jordanians are counting on Abbas to keep the groups under control, but as the two elections held in the territories last month demonstrated, Abbas has no mandate to suppress the terrorists among his own people. Abbas could barely get 30% of the people to turn out for the Hamas-boycotted presidential election until Fatah changed the rules at the last hour, allowing a flood of re-votes by the same 30% to make the turnout a more respectable 70%. In the local elections which had Hamas participation, Fatah only held one-third of all positions contested, with Hamas gaining the other two-thirds.

In other words, when Abbas has to go to the mattresses with Hamas -- and he will, if he's serious -- he's going to be outnumbered 2-1. That means Abbas won't bother, and the resultant terrorist activity will force Israel to respond. The Palestinians will once again claim that Israel broke the truce and respond in kind, and we'll be back to square one -- just like every time this has been tried.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. In order to get a different result, the Palestinians have to want peace and reject the terrorists. So far, that hasn't happened, and until it does, Abbas' pretender status won't advance the cause.

Mark Steyn: Europe Still On Wrong Side Of History

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 beer he happened to have with him. He had a drink and midway through realised that he could urinate on the snow to melt it.

And he did: "Man Peed Way out of Avalanche," as one headline put it. "It was hard," the plucky Slovak told the local press, "and now my kidneys and liver hurt."

I read that item on January 29. The next day Iraq voted and, scanning the coverage from Toronto to Sydney via Dublin, London, Paris and Berlin, I had an eerie sense of déjà vu. The Western media appear to have decided that any good news out of Iraq is one almighty neocon snow job and the only thing to do is emulate Mr Kral and urinate all over it.

Alas, they've got a much tougher job. The snow is still coming down, and they've got nothing in the back of the car except the same watery beer they've been chugging for three years: "They Are Waiting for the Rivers of Blood," proclaimed the headline over Robert Fisk's column in the Independent, another classic for fans of the beloved comic genius to cut out and add to treasured clippings - such as his coverage of the Afghan war ("Bush Is Walking into a Trap") and his confident assertion that there were no Americans at Baghdad airport and that the blundering Yanks had merely stumbled upon an abandoned RAF airfield from the 1950s.

As it transpired, the only folks waiting for the rivers of blood were Fisky, the BBC, CNN and the rest of the gang, and they'll be waiting a long time. So long that, in the Guardian, Martin Jacques has moved on to penning orgasmic fantasies of the mid-century when China will bestride the world and America will be consigned to the garbage heap of history.

Of course, we have seen in the Eason's Fables scandal the reasons why the media has such blinders about American policy. They put their pre-existing biases into their reporting, going as far as making wild, unsubstantiated allegations of conspiracies, assassinations, and torture when they think no one is listening but themselves.

Read the rest of Steyn's column. We'll be talking with him tonight when the Northern Alliance Radio Network fills in again for Hugh Hewitt.

Note To Jordan And Cramer: This Is What Targeting Journalists Looks Like

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 given both executives' connections to reporter-safety forums. However, even after three hours, the best that CNN can do is to take the AP's report and republish it on their site -- and they don't even give it unique coverage. They stack the report onto a much longer and almost completely unrelated article on the debate over "insurgency" strength levels in Iraq.

So much for Jordan's emotional concern over the well-being of reporters in Iraq. The only lesson that can be drawn from this coverage is that only reporters who work for organizations (or executives) that express hostility towards the West get any concern from Jordan, Cramer, and Co.

IBD: Time For Jordan To Eason Down The Road, And Other Quick Links

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 no basis in fact. In journalism, even in High Church Journalism, that is a cardinal sin. Rising to the topmost reaches of media power does not exempt one from the first rules learned in journalism class.

The bloggers, who've done so much recently to correct the elite media's misbehavior — including sending CBS's Dan Rather to newsman's purgatory — now have Eason Jordan as quarry.

Deservedly so. It's time for him to go.

The IBD editorial reaches that conclusion without even discussing Jordan's other unsubstantiated allegations, the torture of journalists by American soldiers or other deliberate assassinations of reporters by the Israeli military. Not too many have yet noted that Jordan's likely successor, Chris Cramer, has made almost as many such allegations as Jordan -- and with those omissions, miss the greater issues of CNN's credibility and the question of what message that CNN spreads in its international editions in order to pander to the anti-American biases of its global audiences. After all, their executives certainly show no compunction against doing exactly that same thing.

I'm happy to see IBD continue the call for Jordan's ouster, however, as the more voices that start weighing in on Eason's Fables, the more difficult it will be for the MSM to continue its blackout. The momentum also puts pressure for CNN to request that the WEF videotape of the forum in which Jordan made these allegations be released for general viewing. The longer they wait, the more certain it is that they know the tape will not exonerate Jordan but convict him instead.

Here are some other cracks tonight in the media blackout:

Scott Sala at Slantpoint notes the discussion at Hannity and Colmes tonight. I could only catch a small part of this discussion, and I came to the same conclusion as Scott: no one on the show had actually researched the issue, including the two hosts.

Larry Kudlow writes a scathing column in National Review, and then has Hugh Hewitt on Kudlow and Cramer to discuss the story; Radioblogger transcribes it.

Glenn Reynolds writes it all up -- again -- at MS-NBC. Too bad the entire network ignored the story yet another day.

The Tennessean picked this up on Sunday and gave it a brief but harsh mention.

Michelle Malkin recaps for the National Ledger.

Keep an eye on the New York Sun for a follow-up, which may come tomorrow.

New blog links:

Molten Thought fisks Kurtz, and becomes a believer.

Slublog notes an interesting link between Nik Gowing and the Chatham House Rules that the WEF used to refuse the release of the videotape.

Eason's Fables -- As Told By Chris Cramer

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 but published in September, five days after the airing of the Killian memo segment on 60 Minutes Wednesday that would rock CBS News for months afterward.

Cramer's comments show a continuation of the pattern set by Eason Jordan, of continually talking about journalists being targeted, with never any attempt at substantiation. That, apparently, is Cramer's, Jordan's, and CNN's "version" of the news. And Cramer wonders at "some incidents" of bad journalism and the lack of trust?

Eason's Fables On Hugh Hewitt Tonight!

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!

Eason's Fables Not An Isolated Incident For CNN

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 trend of journalists who died at the hands of the coalition - in the crossfire - through screw ups - however you want to portray it.

"However you want to portray it"? It doesn't sound to me like Cramer has much of a handle on the facts, nor does he expect his colleagues to actually find and report them. Instead, he sounds more like someone who wants to push a particular spin without substantiation, just as his boss Eason Jordan did a year later.

And what of Gowing? What exactly is Gowing's contribution to the issue that Cramer so heartily and emotionally recommends to INSI? Peter found this article in Gulf News that explains Gowing's assertions in fairly bold language:

Official stonewalling and a reluctance to investigate a growing number of unexplained incidents compounds the suspicions. It suggests one of three ominous trends, or some combination:

Either by default or failure actively to investigate and discipline military personnel, a culture of eliminating the presence of journalists - if necessary using deadly force - is being actively tolerated, perhaps even encouraged.

Commanders at the highest level, backed by their political masters, do not stop their forces targeting journalists when operational security appears to be threatened. By default or more, they may even encourage it, creating a culture of both assumed impunity and immunity from legal recourse.

The presence outside military control of cameras in particular - with their capacity for live or near-instantaneous transmission from the heart of a combat zone - is considered a military threat. If necessary it will be eliminated by force and without the threat of legal action under the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, or Laws of Armed Conflict.

Needless to say, Gowing's entire article attempts to buttress these claims by equating causality with conjunction. In other words, since the journalists died in a combat zone, they must have been targeted as journalists, and therefore a policy of deliberate assassination exists. Gowing uses as a supporting argument the Bush administration's supposed rejection of the Geneva Convention in fighting the war on terror, an inaccurate statement in and of itself, as the Bush administration endorsed the Geneva Conventions for warfare in Iraq -- because we fought a uniformed army to which the Conventions applied. Gowing offers nothing but a series of long-debunked incidents that doesn't provide any proof of anything, except that war correspondents take enormous risks and sometimes get killed doing their jobs.

Does CNN stand by Gowing's reporting and Cramer's endorsement of it? If CNN endorses Gowing, then they have yet to report on the massive conspiracies Gowing postulates. If not, why did Cramer urge all INSI members to read Gowing's work?

In Eason's Fables, the fish may stink from the head, but it spreads down into the body a ways, too.

Sistani: No Shari'a Need Apply

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 of legislation and no law contradicting Islamic tenets may be passed.

In order to understand the subtleties of why Sistani does not represent Iranian-style Shi'ite philosophy, which insists on Shari'a law, one has to know of the differences between Qum (Iran) and Najaf (Iraq) instruction. Qum teaches an activist Shi'ite philosophy, what Americans would probably call fundamentalism, in which Islam controls all aspects of life, temporal as well as spiritual. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini represented the apex of Qumian power during the Iranian revolution, as an example, and the hardliners still in charge in Teheran follow the Qum model of Shi'ism.

Sistani, on the other hand, follows the Najaf philosophy of "quietism", a more philosophical and less temporal form of Shi'ism. In fact, one of the reasons that Qumian thought took prominence in Shi'ism was Saddam's oppression of Najaf's Shi'ite mosques and madrassas, suppressing moderate Shi'ism in favor of the radical fundamentalism that pushed Khomeini to power in 1979. The Americans and/or the Brits understood the subtle differences, which is why the Coalition has been so anxious to keep Sistani relatively happy, or at least mollified. Renewing Najaf's quietism also will allow moderate Islam to compete with radical Qumian and Wahhabist philosophies, which will also help battle Islamist terrorism in the mosques where it starts.

Sistani's message makes sense to those who have watched this unfold. Does that mean that Sistani will sit by and let an American-style legal code be enacted in Iraq? No, but it also means that Sistani has no intention of seeing a theocracy arise which might turn in his grasp and result in the continued suppression of Najafian Shi'ism.

No Video Will Be Forthcoming

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?

Will We See The Palestinian Triangle Play Again?

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 Palestinian cities on the West Bank.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the cease-fire agreement and said it would also include an end to Palestinian incitement to violence, such as official Palestinian TV and radio broadcasts that glorify suicide bombers and other attackers.

In the month since the Palestinian elections, the cycle of violence and harsh rhetoric has gradually slowed almost to a stop. Mahmoud Abbas ordered Palestinian television to stop showing the inciteful programming it had shown ad nauseam during Arafat's reign. The Israelis have pulled back in several areas, although they continued to respond to provocations, especially in Gaza, and started talking about a West Bank pullout for the first time in years.

However, a familiar and sour note interjected itself into the proceedings, as Hamas made clear that it hasn't accepted the idea of a cease-fire yet:

But a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip struck a cautionary note, saying the radical Islamic group, which has been responsible for hundreds of attacks against Israelis during the past four years, would evaluate the summit before committing itself to halting its campaign of violence.

"We agreed before with Mahmoud Abbas that if he succeeds to achieve our national goals, he should come back to the Palestinian factions to discuss the issue, and after that we will decide our stand," Mahmoud Zahar said.

In other words, Hamas plans on continuing its terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians until Abbas gets them everything they want -- and then they'll consider a cease-fire. That belies ABC's assessment later in the piece that Abbas appeared to have gotten commitments from terrorist groups to stop the attacks.

In reality, the Palestinians have once again set up the Triangle Offense, also known as the Palestinian Three-Step. That uses the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad to play the Israelis against world opinion. One or two members of this Palestinian caucus will pledge to stop the violence, while the third conducts terrorist actions until Israel retaliates. That allows the other two Palestinian groups to claim that Israel violated the cease-fire and place the blame for renewed violence on their enemy.

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe Abbas really has Hamas and Islamic Jihad under control. But until Abbas starts arresting their leadership, all I see is another variant of the Three-Step, set to a more pleasant melody.

Howard Dean Finally Wins A National Election

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 in our party have tried to make that a radioactive anvil around my neck," Mr. Roemer said of the abortion issue. "I've had everything, including a couple of kitchen sinks, thrown at me the last few weeks. But I'm not deterred."

Roemer's warning will likely go unheeded by the firebrand Dean, whose initial lead in the Democratic primaries melted away as soon as the first votes were held. Dean famously also melted down in the crucible of Iowa, first in a Dan Quayle moment with Al Sharpton at the pre-caucus debate, and then in an absurd post-caucus appearance that gave the impression of a severe separation from reality. Now the man who couldn't even win a single primary except in his home state of Vermont despite raising $40 million and leading in virtually every poll will lead the Democrats in strategizing their comeback from the wilderness.

If the Democrats wanted to cement their status as a minority party, they couldn't do a better job. Is anyone awake at the DNC?

New York Sun On Eason's Fables: More Than Kurtz Can Do

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.

In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Frank said Mr. Jordan discussed in detail the plight of an Al-Jazeera reporter who had been detained by American forces, was made to eat his shoes while incarcerated in the Abu Ghraib prison, and was repeatedly mocked by his interrogators as "Al-Jazeera boy."

A man who said he was a producer with Al-Jazeera at the network's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said he was unaware of any such incident, "although we have had problems with American troops in and out of Iraq." The Al-Jazeera producer refused to give his name.

That last part is news to me; I hadn't yet heard that. Jordan argued at Davos that the US also tortured journalists in their custody? I know he claimed that at Portugal, but not at Davos. Ironically, not even al-Jazeera backs up Eason's Fables on that score, as Boyd notes. Howard Kurtz seems to have missed this in his conversation with Barney Frank, although it sure looks like Frank wanted to talk about it.

Boyd also discusses the other incidents that we've noted here at CQ:

This is not the first time that Mr. Jordan has spoken critically of the American military's conduct toward journalists. In November, he reportedly told a gathering of global news executives in Portugal called News Xchange that he believed journalists had been arrested and tortured by American forces.

And in October 2002, at a News Xchange conference, he accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting CNN personnel "on numerous occasions."

Mr. Jordan's remarks might have shocked the American attendees, but they certainly played well among some in the audience. The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens, who covered the panel for his paper, told the Sun that after the panel concluded, Mr. Jordan was surrounded by European and Middle Eastern attendees who warmly congratulated him for his alleged "bravery and candor" in discussing the matter.

His "bravery and candor" go only so far, of course, and that limit appears to be the Atlantic Ocean. Jordan has refused to comment on his remarks while back in the United States, understanding that calling the US military a bunch of torturers and murderers without any proof doesn't get the backslaps it gets among the cognoscenti of Europe and the Arab world. Barney Frank still hasn't heard from Jordan, despite Jordan's promise to answer Frank's questions:

Within minutes of making the comments, Mr. Frank said, CNN's Mr. Jordan began to immediately "pull back" on the assertion that 12 journalists had been killed by American forces. He instead focused on the deaths of two reporters killed when a missile fired from an American jet struck the 15th floor of Baghdad's Palestine hotel, where many reporters and film crews stay when in Baghdad.

Mr. Frank said he tried to get information out of Mr. Jordan so that he could forward it to the appropriate congressional investigative authorities. "I think Congress has demonstrated with Abu Ghraib that we will aggressively pursue reasonable allegations," he said. Mr. Frank said he has tried repeatedly over the past few days to get Mr. Jordan to provide evidence of crimes against journalists. He said Mr. Jordan promised to get back to him, "but I haven't heard anything yet," Mr. Frank said.

Note the phrase "within minutes" in describing Jordan's retreat. That sounds quite different than the earlier assertion that Jordan misspoke in the heat of rhetoric and immediately withdrew his most heated accusations. Frank says that Jordan didn't "walk" anything back until he got challenged by the Congressman, which given the political leanings of Frank, probably shocked Eason Jordan -- but then, courage and integrity always shocks those who lack both.

I spoke with Roderick Boyd yesterday afternoon, probably at Hugh Hewitt's suggestion, whom Boyd quotes for the article. Boyd got this story yesterday on top of another assignment due at roughly the same time (on the financial performance of two NY media stocks). Yet he managed to investigate the entire story, get new information out of Barney Frank, talk to at least two of the bloggers involved in keeping this story alive, and publish a news article instead of a facile shrug meant to bury the story. Compare this to Howard Kurtz's effort, after having the story and an interview with David Gergen for over a week. Kurtz should be embarassed with his wan performance.

Frank noted that he offered Eason Jordan the Congressional hearings I suggested yesterday if Jordan had any substantiation for his allegations. I heartily endorse that idea, as I did before, and I think Rep. Frank needs to press for them as quickly as possible -- and I think he needs to subpoena Jordan to get the CNN chief over his trans-Atlantic shyness.

UPDATE: The Boston Globe also covers this story today, but does little more than rehash Howard Kurtz's Post piece.

Kurtz Sticks To Davos, Ignores Other Eason's Fables

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 he was talking about cases of deliberate killing," Frank said.

Jordan denied that last night, saying he had been responding to Frank's comment that the 63 journalists who have been killed in Iraq were "collateral damage" in the war. "I was trying to make a distinction between 'collateral damage' and people who got killed in other ways," Jordan said last night. "I have never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalist. Never meant to suggest that. Obviously I wasn't as clear as I should have been on that panel."

In some of the cases, "with the benefit of hindsight, had more care been taken, maybe this could have been avoided," Jordan said, referring to shootings that involved mistaken identity. But, he said, "it's a war zone. Terrible things happen."

Kurtz goes on to use David Gergen to support Jordan rather than Barney Frank, as Gergen did with Michelle Malkin earlier today. Kurtz also references Richard Sambrook's comments at Jay Rosen's Pressthink blog earlier today, which do support Jordan's account. Interestingly, Howard also notes my own commentary on this story today, quoting my call for Congressional hearings and referencing the blog and myself by name.

What Kurtz missed in all that background was any mention of Jordan's earlier comments in Portugal at the News Xchange forum last November. Kurtz wants to pass this off as a mistake in word choices when Jordan's earlier accusations of US military personnel capturing and torturing journalists shows that his Davos comments weren't simply a lack of rhetorical clarity. Kurtz also missed this earlier accusation of the Israelis targeting journalists from October 2002, again showing that Jordan has a pattern of making these accusations without any substantiation.

It took Kurtz over a week to finally get around to publishing this article on Eason's Fables. In that time, it appears that Kurtz did as little investigation as possible on Jordan. My readers and I found all of Jordan's earlier commentary within 24 hours, and we only have very limited access to Nexis and full-time jobs doing other things than media analysis. Worse than that, all of this information has been repeatedly presented on my blog -- in fact, it was all presented on my blog today, and we know Howard Kurtz read my blog sometime this afternoon. Why didn't Kurtz ask about his remarks in Portugal from three months ago, or about his identical accusations against Israel two years ago? Why didn't Kurtz press Jordan on the entire story? Only Kurtz can answer that, and I doubt he will have much more to say to anyone about Eason's Fables from this point onward.

Kurtz took the most superficial look at Eason's Fables possible, allowing both Kurtz and Jordan to reclaim some credibility while effectively closing the door on the story. We all know that Kurtz does better work than this. It's enough to make his readers -- myself an enthusiastic one up to now -- wonder if Mickey Kaus didn't get it right earlier today.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is too kind to me, and scolds Kurtz appropriately. Hugh Hewitt gives Kurtz a C- for this effort, which I think might be too kind to Kurtz. I don't consider this anywhere near an average effort.

Eason's Fables To Break Into Mainstream Media

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 deliberate targets by "both sides". Called on to clarify his statement, he said that outside of deaths attributed to rebels, 12 journalists, including Americans, were killed by the American army, not by deliberate attack, but in the context of a hostile climate towards the press, where the tone was set by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Many journalists feel that among young American soldiers, many would like to "do" a journalist in the course of combat.

Without going that far, Richard Sambrook, a BBC star raised the stakes. Another journalist in the room also recalled the Palestine hotel incident which supported the statements made in Davos, and recognizes the scale of the phenomenon, well-known within the journalistic community, but not beyond.

David Gergen, the moderator, was taken aback, but could not manage to change the subject.

Michelle Malkin notes that this sounds consistent with what Gergen said -- and it's also clear that Richard Sambrook was no mere bystander in this exchange.

Malkin Gets Gergen On Record On Eason's Fables

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 to protect and rescue journalists."

Gergen mentioned that Jordan had just returned from Iraq and was "caught up in the tension of what was happening there. It's a raw, emotional wound for him."

Gergen said he asked Jordan point blank whether he believed the policy of the U.S. military was to sanction the targeting of journalists. Gergen said Jordan answered no, but then proceeded to speculate about a few incidents involving journalists killed in the Middle East--a discussion which Gergen decided to close down because "the military and the government weren't there to defend themselves."

But the blockbuster news from David Gergen isn't so much the corroboration he gave Michelle about Jordan's remarks. He told Michelle that he had been interviewed by the Washington Post about Jordan's comments last week, who then apparently spiked the story.

The only way that the transcript and/or video of this event will come to light is to have it subpoenaed. The only coverage this will get from a media that has desperately kept the lid on Eason's Fables is for Congress to hold hearings on Jordan's allegations at Davos and Portugal last November. We have seen the response of the mainstream media, which has decided that it won't expose one of its own, especially executives that have the ability to hire and fire people. The corruption of our news media has been exposed to the blogosphere, and at this point only open hearings will finally blow the lid off for everyone to see.

UPDATE: Senator Chris Dodd hasn't directly spoken with Michelle Malkin, but she did get this response from his spokesman:

"Senator Dodd was not on the panel but was in the audience when Mr. Jordan spoke. He – like panelists Mr. Gergen and Mr. Frank – was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."

That's four people who heard it the way Rony Arbovitz reported it, two of them liberal politicians who probably don't have much of an axe to grind against CNN or Eason Jordan.

Open Letter To My Congressional Representatives

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 US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.

Two weeks ago, in Davos, Mr. Jordan then asserted that the US military targets journalists for death in Iraq. This has been confirmed by Rep. Barney Frank, who attended the same conference at which Mr. Jordan spoke. Sen. Chris Dodd also attended but so far has refused to comment.

A growing number of Americans are expressing concern and outrage over these comments. After all, if true, the US military has a critical leadership failure and must be investigated. If untrue, the Eason Jordan has lied about our military while conducting overseas business and damaged our reputation significantly, considering his position at CNN. In either case, Congress must act to determine the validity of the charges.

I urge you to conduct public hearings into this matter to establish once and for all whether the US military has a policy of assassinating and torturing journalists, in Iraq or anywhere else, and correct the terrible damage Mr. Jordan may have inflicted on our image abroad. Only Congressional hearings will do this.

Thank you,

Edward Morrissey
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

Eason's Fables: Demand Congressional Hearings Now

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 that are broadcast or webcast are ‘on the record’ (for 2005 that means all sessions in the Congress Hall or Sanada 1 and 2)

Every other session is only ‘on the record’ in terms of content. That is to say what was said can be reported – but it must not be attributed to any individual. However, should the journalist get the agreement of any participant to be quoted that is of course acceptable.

She also got a message from Adams that a transcript would definitely not be forthcoming. How convenient ... for CNN and Eason Jordan. (Rebecca herself felt that the meeting was on the record, for her part.)

It looks like Eason Jordan and CNN might escape the scandal -- if it's left at that. However, with Barney Frank going on the record with his recollections, we now have another avenue to explore -- Congressional hearings. After all, Eason Jordan has accused the US military of atrocities on two separate occasions in the past three months, one of which occurred with two US lawmakers in attendance. If true, Congress must investigate to determine where those orders originated and who put them into practice.

Jordan needs to come forward to testify as to what information he has. Now, Jordan could claim some kind of reportorial privilege -- but since CNN never reported the stories, sustaining such a claim seems unlikely. Jordan would have to admit he had no evidence for his allegations on a national stage -- and CNN would have to explain his continued employment. Most importantly, such hearings would get tremendous coverage.

Please inform your Senators and representatives of Rep. Barney Frank's comments about Eason Jordan and Davos, and ask when Congress plans on investigating Jordan's allegations of atrocities and murder.

Will Kurtz Talk About Eason's Fables?

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 deafening, it's damning.

We'll all remember this the next time you run a story about conflicts of interest in "journalism." We'll all remember you covering for your boss. Shame on you. You wouldn't take this from another reporter--and certainly not from any politician--in the same position.

Shame on you.

I know I re-sent my question at about the 11:35 CT mark. You can see where it got us.

Malkin Gets Frank On Record On Eason's Fables

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." I have a call in to Sen. Dodd's office and sent an e-mail inquiry to Gergen.

I asked Rep. Frank again if his recollection was that Jordan initially maintained that the military had a deliberate policy of targeting journalists. Rep. Frank affirmed that, noting that Jordan subsequently backed away orally and in e-mail that it was official policy, but "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.

After the panel was over and he returned to the U.S., Rep. Frank said he called Jordan and expressed willingness to pursue specific cases if there was any credible evidence that any American troops targeted journalists. "Give me specifics," Rep. Frank said he told Jordan.

Rep. Frank has not yet heard back yet from Jordan.

Neither have we, Congressman Frank. Kudos to you for speaking out. Can the media ignore Barney Frank -- and will Barney Frank let them?

Another Voice From Davos Comments On Eason's Fables

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 individuals-- perhaps because they were mistaken for insurgents, we don't know. However the distinction he was seeking to make is that being shot by a sniper, or fired at directly is very different from being, for example, accidentally killed by an explosion.

Some in the audience, and Barney Frank on the panel, took him to mean US troops had deliberately set out to kill journalists. That is not what he meant or, in my view, said; and he clarified his comment a number of times to ensure people did not misunderstand him. However, they seem to have done so.

As I replied to Jay after his e-mail alerting me to this post, it's good to get people who attended the conference on the record so we can determine what was said, in absence of the videotape and/or a transcript. Sambrook is, as far as I know, only the third such person to speak up. His recollection contradicts that of Rony Arbovitz and Rebecca MacKinnon, the latter of which spoke against her interests in confirming the thrust of Jordan's remarks as reported by Arbovitz. Does that mean Sambrook is wrong, or lying? No, but it does put him in the minority of those speaking out, an admittedly very small pool of the witnesses. One would think that Rep. Barney Frank or Sen. Chris Dodd would have defended Jordan by this time, had his remarks more accurately reflected Sambrook's recollection than those of Arbovitz and MacKinnon, however.

Not only that, but the singular focus on Davos ignores a track record by Jordan that tends to support Arbovitz and MacKinnon. In November 2004, remember, he told a News Xchange forum in Portugal that the US military captured and tortured journalists, again without any substantiation:

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.

Let's also recall that CNN has never reported on this allegation, a strange development for a news agency whose chief executive alleges crimes which would constitute a blockbuster story. Jordan, apparently, saves up accusations about the US military for his overseas audiences. He does the same thing with accusations against the Israeli military, too, as I noted earlier.

Taken in full context, it's hard to see how Jordan's claims that the US military "targeted" journalists does not imply deliberation and purposeful action, rather than mistaken identity. In the first place, mistaken identity qualifies as collateral damage, the term to which Jordan objected, which Jordan should know full well. Second, if the US did kill journalists with rifle or explosive fire, it's almost beyond doubt that the victims were "targeted" in the generic sense, as the Army and Marines don't usually hit what they don't aim at. To claim that Jordan just meant that Marines and soldiers were damned fine marksman is laughable.

However, at least Sambrook spoke up, something so many others appear loathe to do. Sambrook has plenty more to say, so be sure to read Jay's full post and decide for yourselves. For my part, Jordan has many more answers to provide outside of his Davos commentary, and nothing I've seen so far even begins to explain any of it.

Transformative Power Of Democracy Redux

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 more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country. ...

But officials in Baghdad said a relative lull in violence in the capital has fueled the sense that something has fundamentally changed since the vote. A change of attitudes in Baghdad could make a crucial difference in the battle against the insurgency, and a buoyed sense of civic pride is already beginning to change the way the public treats the police, authorities say.

"They saw what we did for them in the election by providing safety, and now they understand this is their army and their sons," said Sgt. Haider Abudl Heidi, a National Guardsman wearing a flak jacket at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

No one likes to see foreign troops marching into their homeland, especially when such cultural divisions remain between the West and the Middle East. However, after that came hope for real change, and Bush made clear he would not abandon them until the US and UK had secured it for them. The Iraqis even provided their own security forces for the election, a point of extreme pride for a nation which saw its liberation as an exposure of their inability to get rid of Saddam themselves. And now the nation has a true hero, an Iraqi officer who died to ensure that others could live -- and vote:

Part of that mood change is credited to Abdul Amir, Iraq's newest national hero. On election day, Amir, 30, a policeman in Baghdad, noticed a man walking toward a polling station who appeared to be carrying something heavy under his coat. Amir wrapped his arms around the man and dragged him away from the crowd. A belt of explosives wrapped around the man blew both men to shreds.

Members of Iraq's interim cabinet have touted Amir as a symbol of national pride. Newspapers have been filled with stories about him. A statue is being planned, and the elementary school that served as the polling station where he died may change its name to honor him.

Democracy sets in motion a series of events that allow people to take pride in themselves and responsibility for their actions. It transforms people from powerless, rage-filled potential terrorists to involved citizens who can and will build better futures for themselves. Amir knew this and gave his life to ensure it. The Iraqis recognize Amir's sacrifice to them and revile the terrorists who made it necessary.

And that is how the Middle East will be transformed, over the years, as the tyrannies fall and the democracies arise. People do not choose oppression when given a fair opportunity. People given fair opportunities to govern themselves do not strap on bomb belts and blow up civilians. Democracy transforms, and that is the long-term solution to terrorism.

MSM Silence On Eason Jordan (Updates!)

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 Record" managed to avoid recording anything on this story. The Los Angeles Times provides nothing on its West Coast pages.

What about CNN's competitors? MS-NBC gives us a goose egg. Ditto for CBS News, although that may well be a case of professional courtesy. ABC News gives Eason a pass. Even Fox carries nothing on the controversy.

Here we have the man running a major news organization who has accused the US military, on at least two separate occasions in the last three months, of atrocities specifically aimed at journalists -- and the news media remains completely silent about it? Does that make any sense to you, other than a deliberate media blackout? Hell, even Eason Jordan responded, if completely inadequately -- doesn't that make the newspaper or the web sites?

The MSM has circled the wagons. Don't let them get away with it.

UPDATE: Fox did have one mention on this from Monday night, when Brit Hume included it in The Grapevine, his blog, after apparently mentioning it on air. However, Fox has not mentioned it since, nor has it picked up on the pattern of Eason Jordan's allegations. I'm not sure why they decided to just drop it, but it looks like they have.

UPDATE II, 2:57 PM CT: Still nothing on all of the broadcast web sites. The newspapers won't have anything until tonight at the earliest, if they cover it at all.

UPDATE III and BUMP, 11:00 PM CT: None of the links to searches on the MSM sites still come up with any stories containing Eason Jordan and Davos in them. I suggest that we link to these searches every day and ask the mainstream news media why we find nothing on allegations by Eason Jordan of the American military torturing and murdering journalists.

UPDATE IV: Welcome, Lucianne readers! Good to have you on board.

UPDATE V, 2/4 12:25 PM CT: Every single search listed above still comes back empty. Every single major media outlet has ignored this story. How much longer can they hold out?

UPDATE VI, 2/4 16:48 CT: Still nothing on from searches on all sites linked above. The American media outlets don't seem to care about allegations of assassination plots against their own employees. Does that tell you anything about Eason Jordan's credibility amongst his peers?

UPDATE VII, 20:40 PM: Nothing but silence on all fronts ...

UPDATE VIII, 2/5 07:45 AM: Still not a word from these leading lights of the media.

UPDATE IX, 22:30: The media blackout continues. Let the blogs continue to demand an explanation of Eason's Fables, as well as the MSM's protection of Jordan and his slanders.

UPDATE X, 2/7 06:39: Still nothing on any of the search engines. They continue to ignore the story ... and us. We should be expanding our demands past CNN to all news agencies now, asking for answers for the dearth of honest reporting on Eason Jordan.

The Non-Existent Cuts At The VA

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 $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday. White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year.

"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here."

The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations, Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans.

It's an outrage! Bush hates veterans! Or so the Times would have you think. Unless you take the time to read past the first four paragraphs in the article, they'd be successful. However, as the truth finally gets out, the new rules apply as a means test, and the VA budget actually gets more money this year, not less:

The president would increase the co-payment for a month's supply of a prescription drug to $15, from the current $7. The administration says the co-payment and the $250 "user fee" would apply mainly to veterans in lower-priority categories, who have higher incomes and do not have service-related disabilities.

Veterans with service disabilities or in lower-income brackets would not have to pay the user fee, nor the raised co-pay for precriptions, although even $15 is a pretty good price. I can only get generics at that rate, and I have a good medical plan. The overall budget for the VA will come in at over $70 billion, as opposed to the $48 billion funded in the final Clinton budget -- an increase of almost 50% over five years of spending.

One of the messages that Bush gave at the State of the Union speech last week was that of stewardship over the people's money. He told Congress that we had to ensure that we spent the money intelligently and sparingly, as it didn't belong to the government but to the people. I don't think that asking veterans who can afford the fee and who have no service-related illness or injuries to pay into the system is outrageous, although it is certainly debatable. But for the New York Times to imply that the annual increases given to the VA amount to "cuts" simply because the Bush administration intends on spending more money with more oversight not only is dishonest, but positively Orwellian.

Can the Times answer this -- how does a $10 billion dollar increase from 2004, itself a 15% increase, qualify as a cut?

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin notes a number of lefties who have difficulty reading more than the first three paragraphs of news articles, or fact-checking to determine what the true budget commitments have been. Unsurprisingly, the leading Democratic lights Kos and Atrios either can't read, can't count, or refuse to do either.

The AP Misses The Point

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 Gretchen Wilson's guitar player. His jeans had a strategically placed rip in the crotch. ...

Although with the NFL watching so closely, it's a wonder how Wilson's "Here For the Party" managed to slip through.

"Gonna have a little fun," she sang. "Gonna get me some."

One can almost hear the small voices in living rooms across the country: "Daddy, what does 'get me some' mean?"

I know Bauder can't be that dim, and so I can only assume that he wanted another MTV-produced shlockfest, where performers lip-synched while either gyrating while simulating masturbation, or lip-synching while simulating bondage-rape fantasies. Bauder would consider that relevant to the new generation. Apparently, having people with talent regardless of age actually play music and sing is just too old-fashioned for Bauder and the football fans of today.

Well, I disagree, and so did the fans of Jacksonville who showed up at the stadium. McCartney delivered what fans wanted to hear in a very short set -- his standards, the songs that made the world stand still for moments and against which Justin Timberlake is revealed as the substanceless nobody he is. Alicia Keys gave us a tremendous remembrance of Ray Charles with her remarkable voice, reminding us what a has-been a tired and semi-naked Janet Jackson has become.

Perhaps the Super Bowl entertainment lacked a certain amount of relevance. However, it had class and talent by the boatload, apparently two commodities that Bauder cannot recognize. If so, I recommend he continue to watch MTV and write on other topics.

Bill Moyers, The Strib, And "Damnable Lies"

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 Moyers reveals just how bad of a journalist he truly was in this one speech. He delivers this smear while only checking one source, doing no research -- Moyers surely has access to the Congressional record -- simply because it fits his preconceived notions about Christians, Reagan, and Republicans. The Strib equally shows its editorial pages as nothing more than a holdover of yellow journalism by republishing his speech without doing any kind of basic fact-checking.

This smear may have passed without challenge had John Hinderaker at Power Line not challenged Moyers' speech on other grounds. That effort led to an extraordinary phone call:

Friday morning, I was sitting in my office when my telephone rang. On the phone was a soft-spoken man who said, "I'm calling for Mr. John Hinderaker."

"Speaking," I responded, in the brusque tone I use when fielding cold calls.

The man said, "My name is James Watt."

Go read the rest of the story, and find out why Moyers' smear can no longer hold.

Another John Kerry Flip-Flop

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 decision to sign the form is not conditional on any others signing, but he expressed lingering bitterness over double standards on military service.

''Let me make this clear: My full military record has been made public," Kerry said. ''All of my medical records and all of my fitness reports, every fitness report involving each place I served, is public. Where are George Bush's still? Where are his military records? End of issue."

Er, no. Kerry knows that this isn't true, because he told Tom Brokaw that very thing just before the election. Perhaps John Kerry doesn't want to recall it now, but on October 28th, the week before the election, Brokaw asked him about the IQ tests that he took in the military, which I noted in this post:

Brokaw: Someone has analyzed the President's military aptitude tests and yours, and concluded that he has a higher IQ than you do.

Kerry: That's great. More power. I don't know how they've done it, because my record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from.

Later on, when NBC aired the interview a second time, they edited that response down to exclude the admission, although the transcript remains on their site. Perhaps John Kerry thought that NBC's historical revisionism had gotten him off the hook.

The fact is that Kerry's full Navy records have never been released, and probably never will, unless someone sues the military for a Freedom of Information Act release. Kerry isn't about to allow that file out, as his discharge papers will show that Kerry got booted out on a bad-conduct discharge due to his post-Viet Nam activities, which Thomas Lipscomb and the New York Sun confirmed two days after the interview. If they are released, his political career is over.

Kerry may well believe that a good offense makes for the best defense. It's likely the only defense he truly has left. (See Beldar for more details.)

Good Riddance To Sore Losers

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 a deep sense of political despair, is a significant event in the life of a nation that thinks of itself as a place to escape to. Firm numbers on potential immigrants are elusive.

"The number of U.S. citizens who are actually submitting Canadian immigration papers and making concrete plans is about three or four times higher than normal," said Linda Mark, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver.

I suppose I should welcome the exodus of idiots that believe they can't abide living with a GOP majority; after all, the more that leave only helps that majority survive that much longer. Their departure also has the beneficial effect of raising the IQ averages afterwards. However, given the example of Iraq and Afghanistan, watching pampered Americans go weeping across the border to Canada simply because they can't adjust to losing their monopoly on political thought in the US is an embarassment to America and to the very notion of democracy.

Part of the compact of a democracy is a commitment to majority rule. That means accepting the role of minority status when your party/ideology falls out of favor. Like it or not, Republicans committed themselves to working within the system for over 40 years of minority status, eventually adjusting their platform and their priorities while the Left lost favor. The GOP didn't flee to Mexico just because their leaders couldn't win elections.

In the end, the people who flee America because they backed John Kerry are nothing but cowards who have no real commitment to democracy. Good riddance.

Cox & Forkum On Eason's Fables

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!

My Super Bowl Prediction (And Live Blog!)

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 who actually served in the military.

5:36 - I guess Clinton irritated Michelle Malkin earlier, in a way typical of most politicians, I would presume. Don't forget that his wife still has elections to win, presumably a national one in 2008.

5:39 - Terrell Owens is playing. Well, I would have predicted against that...

5:42 - First challenge will overturn the fumble, but Andy Reid will only get one more for the entire game. Giving it up in the first two minutes to reverse a turnover by his offense doesn't put much confidence in their ability ...

5:50 - Two series, same score -- zip. The Pats made some headway on field position, though. Belichick will wear the Eagles down that way if he can ...

5:54 - Okay, let me get this straight. Ice Cube went out and made the XXX sequel from Vin Diesel's original. Vin went out and made ... The Pacifier? Is there a Hollywood agent in the house?

6:01 - Yeah, I hate the GoDaddy commercial. I hate GoDaddy even more -- they routinely work with the worst spammers and do nothing about them. May I suggest a server failure?

6:06 - Now James, I did say I was live-blogging the Super Bowl spectacle. Good to have you on board, man! I assume there won't be any opportunity for that California triumphalism tonight?

6:13 - The third turnover finally counts for the Pats, stopping what looked to be a promising Eagles drive. Donovan McNabb looks out of control, and he's been lucky up to that last play. The Pats have a long field in front of them, though.

6:18 - Both quarterbacks need to settle down. McNabb almost threw another pick after getting great field position off the Pats punt.

6:20 - Another turnover by the Eagles, and this isn't on the 3-yard-line. The Pats now have good field position.

6:22 - End of Q1, a scoreless quarter. This is the quarter I believe the Eagles will wish they had back. The Pats need to settle down a bit, and now that they have the ball in decent field position, they could put a definite hurt on the Eagles. This is turning out to be a better defensive game than I anticipated!

6:29 - What a pretty pass by McNabb! Great job!

6:32 - Eagles score first, on a 7-yard pass from McNabb to LJ Smith. Great offensive series. Let's see how the Pats react ...

6:35 - Okay, I have to admit that I laughed out loud at the Lays commercial where the kids threw MC Hammer back over the fence ...

6:42 - Second non-turnover called by the refs. I know that the Pats will get it overturned on challenge -- but why can't the refs get it right the first time? Both times the player was clearly down. The Pats are doing a nice job moving the ball now.

6:48 - Brady loses the ball -- and he looks like the rookie in this quarter now. He needs to settle down. The game isn't out of hand, but Brady needs to get a grip really quick, or it will be.

6:50 - He's lucky; they got a bad punt by the Eagles and will start on their 40.

7:00 - Pats tie it up on a 4-yard pass play from Brady to Givens. Nice series, and the short field burned the Eagles. They left 70 seconds on the board, though. McNabb can still move the ball if the Eagles can get good field position on the kickoff ...

7:06 - Bad omen for NE: Eugene Wilson gets hurt and goes off the field. Their depleted secondary looks even more vulnerable, and you know that McNabb will exploit that in the second half.

7:10 - Tie game going into the half, 7-7. Looks like a classic Super Bowl...

7:25 - Thanks for the link, Glenn, and my friends at Ankle-Biting Pundits are also liveblogging, I see ...

7:27 - I hope that Kid Rock, Janet Jackson, and Justin Timberlake are attending Sir Paul's School on Showmanship. You see, kids, when you have real talent, you don't need to grab your crotch and rely on pseudosadomasochistic pantomimes in order to get attention. The First Mate and I saw Sir Paul the last time he came through St. Paul, and he hasn't lost much off his game.

7:46 - NE has the ball and moving in fits and starts. Mostly it's just Brady and Deion Branch, who have teamed up for almost every yard on this drive. Branch just caught a pass to the 2.

7:47 - Mike Vrabel made a juggling catch that even a regular receiver would have a problem making, especially when he got interference from Jevon Kearse. 14-7 Pats, and at least someone else than Branch made a play for Brady.

7:53 - Now, that's a commercial ... Anheuser-Busch's thank you to the troops was well done. And I hope it inspires that kind of reception whenever and wherever our troops are.

7:56 - The Pats stop the Eagles on the next series, which puts the pressure on the Eagles' D. A great punt return got started on a hold, so the Pats will start deep in the hole. Let's see if the running game gets on track here.

8:02 - No good on the running game, although it hardly looks as if the Pats want to give it an honest shot. But thanks to a good punt and a botched return, the Pats won't give up field position on the punt.

8:06 - Hey, my friend Kevin McCullough is also live-blogging!

8:10 - No one's quitting yet on the Eagles - they've just tied the game up on a McNabb-Westbrook score. This has become a very good game!

8:20 - End of Q3, tied 14-14, and both teams playing much better ball than in the first quarter. This will be a terrific finish to a great game, I'm sure ...

8:23 - Pats have the running game going, and that might make the difference in this quarter.

8:24 - Pats stuff it into the end zone on a Corey Dillon 2-yard run as the Pats start the quarter by going into the lead, 21-14. I expect that the Eagles will have a response ready ...

8:31 - BIG defensive stop for the Pats, and now they get the ball back in Eagles territory. This is their chance to put some distance between themselves and the pesky Eagles.

8:32 - Say, was that Craig Westover in that MasterCard commercial?

8:34 - What a catch by Deion Branch! I thought that was a pick!

8:40 - Chris Collingsworth is all wet. That running play on third down was a dumb call. Brady has been hot, and one low-risk attempt to get into the end zone would have been no problem; even a sack would have left them well within chip-shot range for Vinatieri. Pats lead by 10, but the Eagles have to feel pretty good it's not 14.

8:45 - That's probably one too many turnovers by Donovan McNabb -- if the Pats put together a good drive, they'll eat up whatever time the Eagles need to get back into the game.

8:49 - Good reaction by the Eagles D, but the offense lost two minutes and about 50 yards.

8:54 - The Eagles are playing dink-n-dunk while the clock ticks ... they're going to run out of time.

8:57 - Okay, Freddie Mitchell may have gotten his first down, but these guys are losing precious time while they huddle up and have long conversations. Do they want to win this game, or just make the spread?

8:59 - Two-minute warning -- and the Eagles are still playing dink-n-dunk. They may score here, but I doubt they'll have any time left if they do.

9:03 - Or maybe they will! Philadelphia scores on a perfect strike down the middle, with 1:48 left. They'll need an onsides kick to do it, I'd think.

9:06 - The onsides flopped. The Eagles will have to try to steal the ball somehow.

9:11 - Punting is the better decision. A 52-yarder is iffy, and if Vinatieri missed it, the field position would have been too good. Best to put it out inside the 20 and make the Eagles work for it.

9:13 - Beautiful punt, on the 4 with 46 seconds left. What a game!

9:14 - Lousy time management will kill them. No, I'm wrong, the Harrison pick will do it instead. Congrats, Pats! What a terrific Super Bowl, although in the last five minutes, the Eagles did just about everything they could to give the game away with their terrible clock management.

9:17 - Deion Branch should be the MVP, or maybe Tedy Bruschi. Brady will probably get it, but I don't think he played all that great a game.

9:25 - The scroll confirms that Branch won the MVP -- a good call!

Thanks to all of you who hung around for the live-blogging. This one really was a good game. I'd still say that the '79 Steelers-Cowboys game or the Rams-Titans were the best, but this was pretty darned good.

The Details That Destroy Eason's Fables

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.

Final note on Blanknoone -- he wants to make clear that he is a "huge fan" of CQ, which I certainly appreciate.

Eason Jordan made comments at the WEF in Davos about the US military targetting and killing 12 journalists. I use Reporters without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)in French) to investigate his claims. On its homepage RSF says 46 reporters and 'media assistants' have been killed in Iraq since the start of fighting. 31 journalists, 15 media assitants. They link to a list of names which links to a short blurb on each of the deceased reporters. They do not have blurbs for the assistants, but I tried to piece together what I could.

CNN's Eason Jordan said 12 dead journalists had been 'targetted' by the US military. I tried to find them. With the widest possible definition of 'suspicious' I came up with a list that happened to be 13. I am not saying these necessarily include the 12 Jordan was talking about. I see one case that is in my judgement worth investigating. To use this data to arrive at the US military targetting 12 journalists requires both extreme anti-American bias and very kooky conspiracy theory explanations.

I list those I consider possibly suspicious first. It includes the date, name and RSF blurb followed by (my comments in parenthesis)

Possibly suspicious:
01.11.2004 - Dhia Najim, Reuters
Dhia Najim, an Iraqi freelance cameraman working for the news agency Reuters was shot dead in disputed circumstances on 1st November 2004 in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

A US army communique said that Najim, 47, was filming clashes between US marines and Iraqi rebels in the Andulus district of Ramadi when he was shot in the neck. The US military authorities said they had looked at the footage he had taken and claimed that it showed rebels preparing to attack coalition forces.

Reuters said it had seen video footage of Najim's death. The agency, which did not identify the source of the footage, said it indicated that he was killed by a sniper shot without any signs of fighting going on at the time.

A Reuters dispatch also noted that press photographs taken on 31 October showed US marine snipers taking up position in Ramadi. Reuters ruled out any possibility Najim being linked to the rebels and called for a thorough investigation by the US army. Najim's colleagues and family believe he was killed by a US sniper.

(US Army says footage clearly shows reporter was operating with insurgents and died in a firefight. Rueters (with a vested interest) says no way was their reporter operating with terrorists and he was killed by a US sniper, not in fighting. I think this is a case worthy of investigation, especially as both sides claim to have footage to support them. Just like Eason Jordan's comments, "Let's go to the videotape!")

12.09.2004 - Mazen al-Tomaizi, Al-Arabiya
Palestinian journalist Mazen al-Tomaizi, who worked for the pan-Arab TV news station Al-Arabiya and the Saudi TV station Al-Ekhbariya, was reporting live on Al-Ekhbariya at the scene of a burning Bradley fighting vehicle on 12 September 2004 in Baghdad when he was hit by the impact of a missile fired from a US helicopter.

(Palestinian journalist filming a still burning Bradley. An AH fired a missile (rather apparently at what they thought destroyed the Bradley) and he died in the explosion.)

15.08.2004 - Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, ZDF
Abbas, 32, married with three children, was killed on 15 August 2004 on his way from his native Falluja to Baghdad. He had worked for the German TV Network ZDF as a freelance producer for about a year and a half.

When he phoned the ZDF office in Baghdad to say he was coming he mentioned he had just filmed a house destroyed by US warplanes. About 25 minutes later, he rang again to say he had seen a second attack. During the call, he suddenly said he and others with him were being fired at. There was a dull thud, apparently an explosion, and the line was cut off, according to ZDF correspondent in Iraq.

(I think it pretty absurd to think someone was calling in close air support on a moving reporter or that a pilot identified him as a journalist. I'll include it in suspicious because I know the kooks will and I want the details told.)

15.08.2004 - Hossam Ali, freelance Iraqi freelance photographer Hossam Ali was killed in Falluja on 15 August 2004 in unclear circumstances.

(Unclear circumstances is enough evidence for the Blame America First crowd...so I wanted to highlight it)

19.04.2004 - Assad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya
29.04.2004 - Hussein Saleh, driver, Al-Iraquiya TV (Media Assistant)
TV The coalition-funded Al-Iraqyia said on 19 April 2004 that two of its staff had been killed that day as they travelled to Samarra north of Baghdad. "Journalist Assad Kadhim and driver Hussein Saleh have been killed", said TV news editor-in-chief Najm Khalfaji. He said the crew had started to film a US base as it came under fire.

(They were hired by the Coalition, and there is no indication who did the firing at them...but they were in the general vicinity of Americans when killed so that is probably enough for the blame America first crowd. Somewhat troubled by the dates being 10 days apart. These reporters that don't have frontiers apparently don't have editors either. Probably just a typo.)

26.03.2004 - Bourhan Mohammad al-Louhaybi, ABC News Bourhan Mohammad al-Louhaybi was killed while covering clashes between US forces and groups of armed Iraqis in Falluja, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad on 26 March 2004.

The cameraman, 34, had reportedly wanted to go on filming the clashes against the advice of some of his colleagues.

(Again, being in the general vicinity of Americans and fighting is enough for blame America firsters)

18.03.2004 - Ali Al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya
18.03.2004 - Ali Abdel Aziz, Al-Arabiya
Two Al-Arabiya journalists were hit by American shots on 18 March 2004 near the Borj al-Hayat Hotel although there their vehicle was clearly marked "TV."

Cameraman Ali Abdel-Aziz was killed instantly, and reporter Ali Al-Khatib died early the next day from his injuries at Baghdad's neurosurgical hospital. Both worked for the Dubai-based, pan-Arab TV news network Al-Arabiya.

The TV crew was there because the Borj al-Hayat Hotel had just sustained a rocket attack. Abdel Aziz's brother, Haidar Abdel Aziz, said Al-Arabiya had been given permission to film by the US army. "Suddenly, a Volvo did not stop at the roadblock and the soldiers began to open fire," he said. "My brother and the journalist wanted to leave, they ran towards their car, and at the moment that it was starting up, an armoured vehicle fired on it."

(So while parked in line at a roadblock...while someone was trying to ram through it...they started driving. Possibly not quite as much restraint as might be desired, but certainly not the military going hunting for journalists. Also, the RSF text is written to cast the Americans in the worst possible light...only the quote from the brother clarifies what happened.)

17.08.2003 - Mazen Dana, Reuters
Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana, 43, was shot dead by an American soldier on 17 August 2003 as he was filming Abou Ghraib prison in a suburb of Baghdad. US officials said the soldier mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A veteran who had worked for the British news agency Reuters for 10 years, Dana won an international reputation for his coverage in his home town of Hebron in the Occupied Territories. He was roughed up and injured several times by Israeli soldiers and settlers while trying to shoot footage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(I find it interesting that RSF find the need to detail Israeli action at a totally different place and time in their very brief blurbs. They certainly don't give bios of other journalists. That said, he pointed a camera at a secure and notorius facility and a soldier mistook it for an weapon. Again, possibly not quite as much restraint as desired, but certainly not journalist hunting by the military. PS there is a reason that the military Public Affairs section escorts journalists.)

08.04.2003 - José Couso, Tele 5
08.04.2003 - Taras Protsyuk, Reuters
Two TV cameramen, Spaniard José Couso and Ukrainian Taras Protsyuk, were killed on 8 April 2003 when a US tank fired on the hotel Palestine in Baghdad, where many foreign journalists were staying.

(Probably the most famous incident. It is noted that RSF did not bother to give ANY indication as to WHY the tank fired on the hotel. The unit was under indirect fire, SIGINT picked up an Iraqi radio transmissions of an observer adjusting the artillery fire. The unit was looking for an artillery observer trying to kill them when two men on a high balcony, with obvious electronic equipment, in a good observation post, were taking an obvious interest in them. They were definitely shot by Americans. But there is no way it could be classified as 'targetting journalists')

08.04.2003 - Tarek Ayoub, Al Jazeera
Al-Jazeera cameraman Tarek Ayoub (35), a Jordanian, was killed on 8 April 2003 when a missile hit and badly damaged the station's offices near the Mansour Hotel in the centre of Baghdad.

Ayoub, who was the station's permanent correspondent in Amman, was sent to beef up the team in Iraq when the war broke out. He was seriously wounded in the attack and died soon afterwards.

(Part of Saddam's media control infrastructure. Best not to be in the belly of the beast when the beast is getting slain. Was he a cameraman or a correspondent?)

23.03.2003 - Terry Lloyd, ITV News
Reporter for the British TV network ITN, veteran British war reporter Terry Lloyd, 51, was killed in gunfire, probably from US-British troops, near Basra on 22 March 2003.

(I include this only because of RSF's wording. He drove literally between US and Iraqi forces in heavy combat. I have never seen any evidence as to which side hit him, but it was his own damn fault either way)

Not at all suspicious: (VERY clearly terrorist forces)
27.10.2004 - Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, Al-Sharqiya
14.10.2004 - Karam Hussein, European Pressphoto Agency
14.10.2004 - Dina Mohamad Hassan, Al Hurriya Television
07.10.2004 - Ahmad Jassem, Nivive television
26.08.2004 - Enzo Baldoni, Diario della settimana
03.06.2004 - Sahar Saad Eddine Nouami, Al-Mizan, Al-Khaima, Al-Hayat Al-Gadida
27.05.2004 - Kotaro Ogawa, Nikkan Gendai
27.05.2004 - Shinsuke Hashida, Nikkan Gendai
07.05.2004 - Waldemar Milewicz, TVP
07.05.2004 - Mounir Bouamrane, TVP
18.03.2004 - Nadia Nasrat, Diyala Television
28.10.2003 - Ahmed Shawkat, Bila Ittijah
02.07.2003 - Ahmad Karim, Kurdistan Satellite TV
07.04.2003 - Christian Liebig, Focus
07.04.2003 - Julio Anguita Parrado, El Mundo
04.04.2003 - Michael Kelly, Washington Post
02.04.2003 - Kaveh Golestan, BBC
22.03.2003 - Paul Moran, Australian Broadcasting Corporation

15 Media assistants killed
(RSF doesn't bother to list any details of the media assistants. I will try to associate them based on dates with Reporters details and label them (S) Possibly Suspicious and (NS) Not at all Suspicious and (?) no info at all.)

25.08.2004 - Jamal Tawfiq Salmane, Gazeta Wyborcza (?)
29.05.2004 - Mahmoud Ismael Daood, bodyguard, Al-Sabah al-Jadid (?)
29.05.2004 - Samia Abdeljabar, driver, Al-Sabah al-Jadid (?)
27.05.2004 - Unknown, translator (NS)
25.05.2004 - Unknown, translator (?)
21.05.2004 - Rachid Hamid Wali, cameraman assistant, Al-Jazira (?)
29.04.2004 - Hussein Saleh, driver, Al-Iraquiya TV (S)(included in detail above)
26.03.2004 - Omar Hashim Kamal, translator, Time (Not sure. Same date as the ABC News guy in the vicinity of Fallujah, but different employer, and not mentioned in the blurb)
18.03.2004 - Majid Rachid, technician, Diyala Television (NS)
18.03.2004 - Mohamad Ahmad, security agent, Diyala Television (NS)
27.01.2004 - Duraid Isa Mohammed, producer and translator, CNN (? based on RSF, NS based on additional research)
27.01.2004 - Yasser Khatab, driver, CNN (? based on RSF, NS based on
additional research))
07.07.2003 - Jeremy Little, sound engineer, NBC (?)
06.04.2003 - Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, translator, BBC (?)
22.03.2003 - Hussein Othman, translator, ITV News (Same date as the NS Paul Moran, but is not mentioned in the blurb.)

I took a special interest in the two from CNN, as they were most likely to personlly affect Jordan. Here is CNN's article on it. Clearly terrorist actions. And the CNN car with the security people left them behind. Guilty conscience?

Overall I think the case of Dhia Najim is worth investigating. There is a truth and there is a good chance that we can get to it. But even if Najim was shot by a sniper, that by no means indicates that the US military deliberately targetted Najim or even identified him as a reporter. Other than that, I don't see anything that could even possibly be legitimately described as the military targetting journalists. Mistakes. Collateral damage. Panic. But if the US military set out to kill journalists, especially as a policy as Jordan insinuates, they would have been a whole lot more effective that what the evidence I have seen shows.

Let's Play "Guess Who Talks Like General Mattis"

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 against our military.

The hypocrisy is stunning. Gen. Mattis told the truth about a fundamental human activity — war — and was treated as though he had dropped a nuclear weapon on an orphanage. Yet when some bozo on a talk show confesses to an addiction or a perversion in front of millions of viewers, he's lionized as "courageous" for speaking out.

Sorry. It's men like Jim Mattis who are courageous. The rest of us barely glimpse the meaning of the word.

We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has?

Peters has much more to say, all of it excellent, about Mattis and the hypocrisy of the media that blew his comments out of context and proportion. Peters makes the argument that others have said much the same thing, back when the media not only was not omnipresent but also not biased against American fighting men and women. For an example that Peters misses, CQ reader RCL notes in an e-mail an interesting quote from a respected American leader. Can anyone guess who wrote these words?

I knew Uncle Samuel was holding out on me when your letter came not with Boxley's and Brelsford's. Two came this morning and I am of course very happy. We are all wondering what the [enemy] is going to do about [our] proposition to him. We don't care what he does. He's licked either way he goes. For my part I'd as soon be provost marshal ... as have any other job I know of now. It is a shame we can't go in and devastate [the enemy] and cut off a few of [their] kids' hands and feet and scalp a few of their old men but I guess it will be better to make them work for [our allies] for fifty years.

Which foaming-at-the-mouth, bloodthirsty American war criminal wrote these words, and when? Jim Mattis? Colin Powell? George S. Patton?

Give up?

How about Harry S Truman, written on the eve of the Armistice that ended World War I? Truman wrote these words in a letter home to Bess, apparently unafraid of the damage he might do to American morale or sensibilities. After the carnage of the Great War, I doubt that Truman had any romantic notions left about battle or combat, and yet he had no problem communicating his desire to continue it.

So let's all just take a deep breath and let General Mattis do the job for which he's paid and for which he has such enthusiasm, and be a bit grateful for his presence. After all, if the oft-cited hero of the American liberal can write about his desire to kill Germans and cut off their kids' hands, I think we can accept Mattis' desire to kill the terrorists in the Middle East.

UPDATE: I'm informed by CQ reader Check Six that Peters was Army, not Marine Corps. I've corrected the post.

Eason's Fables Introduction

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 with these sites as well.

We need to keep the pressure on CNN and the mainstream media to take responsibility for their biases and their editorial decisions on coverage. Jordan has created yet another excuse for anti-American sentiment and slandered our men and women fighting overseas -- stuffing money in his pocket off the blood of our soldiers and Marines while denigrating them. I can't think of anything more disgusting. After you read through the material presented here and on other sites, I'm sure you will agree.

UPDATE: A new blog has been launched -- Easongate promises to stay on top of all developments on the story. Be sure to check it out.

UPDATE II: Dread Pundit Bluto also has been working on Eason's Fables, but has run afoul of Blogger's inability to support trackback pings.

Nick Coleman Disappears From Strib?

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 looked up the piece from Coleman's column page, the same link is there -- and I get the same result. Coleman's piece cannot be found.

Did the Strib pull Coleman's column? Why would they do that? I can only speculate based on Coleman's track record. He's still gainfully employed by the Strib after libelling the Power Line guys, claiming that they receive covert payments from political activists, when in fact they do not, and lying about Scott Johnson's relationship with his employer. They even still have him on the payroll after telling his readers to boycott one of their biggest advertising clients and costing the paper over $200,000 in revenue. The big question is -- what does it take to get the Strib to 404 Coleman?

My guess: he came out in favor of tort reform in medical malpractice. The Strib, after all, has its principles.

One More Crack In The Dam

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.

Jordan's words matter because CNN is, in the eyes of much of the world, the "voice of America." If its news chief is reporting fabrications to global leaders at elite summits, it's another blow to media credibility at home, and to the United States' reputation abroad.

Officially, CNN says, "Mr. Jordan emphatically does not believe that the U.S. military intended to kill journalists and believes these accidents to be cases of 'mistaken identity.'"

Nice try, but that's not what he said in Davos, according to multiple news accounts, including one from a former CNN reporter who was there.

Three cheers for the Press-Enterprise, which shows that it pays attention to the blogosphere. Its readers in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties get to be well-informed; I wonder why other customers served by larger media outlets won't get that opportunity. I also wonder how the Los Angeles Times, which publishes in that area, feels about getting scooped by a regional broadsheet. The editorial notes this obliquely, commenting at the end that if CNN wants to continue billing itself as "the world's most respected news network," it needs to replace the slanderer who runs it.

The editorial requires a free registration, a minimal hurdle to support a newspaper that listens to its readership and actually reports the news. (hat tip: Richard H. and Free Republic)

Cracking The Blackout On Your Own

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 caught in a crossfire and no one could tell who shot him.

My question -- why isn't the American media covering Eason Jordan's accusations? If they are true, surely this would be a blockbuster story. If they are false, then the head of a major American news organization is spreading lies overseas about our military, contributing to anti-American sentiment. That calls into question CNN's credibility, even more so since Jordan has already admitted to slanting the news in the past to curry favor with Saddam Hussein.

Not one news organization has covered this story, except for a brief mention by Brit Hume. Why?

I would encourage people to write their own questions -- if you cut and paste this, they'll consider it spam -- but submit something on Eason's Fables. Even if they screen the questions out, the Post will understand just how many of their readers have become disgusted by this media blackout. At some point, the silence will become unsustainable, and the last ones to cover the story will lose credibility along with CNN.

Keep the pressure on -- it's only a matter of days now.