Idiot Spotting: Eason Jordan

Best of the Web is so taken with reader Jay Lesseig’s observation, “Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots”, that it has begun a new “Spot the Idiot” feature. Eason Jordan was not the first exhibit, but he really should have been.

To summarize for the couple of denizens of Mars who have missed the story so far: Mr. Jordan is in charge of news operations for the Cable News Network. Two weeks ago, during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he asserted, according to at least eight eyewitnesses, that U.S. troops in Iraq have targeted and killed (that is, deliberately murdered) 12 reporters. The first public report came from Rony Abovitz, a Florida businessman who describes himself as apolitical. Blogging on a site provided by the WEF itself, he reported on a session titled “Will Democracy Survive the Media?” Mr. Jordan was among the panelists.

During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times. . . .

Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if he had any objective and clear evidence to back up these claims, because if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park. David Gergen was also clearly disturbed and shocked by the allegation that the U.S. would target journalists, foreign or U.S. He had always seen the U.S. military as the providers of safety and rescue for all reporters. . . .

To be fair (and balanced), Eason did backpedal and make a number of statements claiming that he really did not know if what he said was true, and that he did not himself believe it. But when pressed by others, he seemed to waver back and forth between what might have been his beliefs and the realization that he had created a kind of public mess. His statements, his reaction, and the reaction of all in attendance left me perplexed and confused. Many in the crowd, especially those from Arab nations, applauded what he said and called him a “very brave man” for speaking up against the U.S. in a public way amongst a crowd ready to hear anti-US sentiments.

So far, nine other persons present at the meeting have offered their recollections, seven essentially confirming Mr. Abovitz’s account, two – one of them Mr. Jordan himself – insisting that he merely contradicted another panelist, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had put forward too benign a view of the conditions under which reporters work in Iraq.

Around the right side of the blogosphere, “Easongate” has become a a veritable firestorm, reportedly discussed at greater or lesser length on over 400 blogs to date (no idea how anybody had the patience to count). The heat can be judged by the strongly negative reaction in many quarters to a short piece that appeared on yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial page. That’s not a notably liberal venue, and the author, Bret Stephens, has never before been accused of left wing deviationism. One might think, too, that his conclusion would be adequate for anybody deeply offended by Mr. Jordan’s accusation that American troops murder members of the press corps:

I’ll leave it to others to draw their own verdicts, but here’s mine: Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo – rather than outright allegation – is the vehicle of mainstream media bias. Had Mr. Jordan’s innuendo gone unchallenged, it would have served as further proof to the Davos elite of the depths of American perfidy. Mr. Jordan deserves some credit for retracting the substance of his remark, and some forgiveness for trying to weasel his way out of a bad situation of his own making. Whether CNN wants its news division led by a man who can’t be trusted to sit on a panel and field softball questions is another matter.

Michelle Malkin dismisses Mr. Stephens’ message as “Run along, nothing more to see here, move on, huh?”, while Dinocrat accuses him of whitewashing Jordan out of a diaphanous conflict of interest. (Stephens was named last year to the WEF-sponsored Forum of Young Global Leaders, and Jordan’s bio on the WEF site includes an entry “World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow Programme”, with no indication of his relationship to that organization or its to the group – probably just a goat feather – to which Mr. Stephens belongs.)

If characterizing Jordan’s statements as “defamatory innuendo” and strongly implying that CNN ought to fire him is a whitewash, I wonder what would constitute slander. Perhaps it would be a good idea for some of the more fervent souls to take deep breaths and cold showers, before we get into a full-scale slugfest between those who want to see Jordan dismissed from his position and those who won’t settle for less than burning at the stake. My own conclusions are these:

1. Keeping the flames burning is the WEF’s retroactive decision that “Will Democracy Survive the Media?” was off-the-record. (I say retroactive, because it’s obvious that no one thought that at the time. Would a blogger’s account have appeared on a WEF-sponsored site if the panel had been assigned that status in advance?) One of the loudest demands is, Release the tape. In my opinion, that isn’t necessary. The eyewitness accounts are unanimous in all material respects, except for Mr. Jordan’s own self-serving apologia and a corroborating statement from one of his buddies. Among the backers of the Abovitz narrative are such liberals as Rep. Frank, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and former Clinton spin doctor David Gergen. The clincher is that those calling for making the tape public do not include Eason Jordan. It doesn’t seem likely that he isn’t interested in presenting evidence that, if his version of the affair is accurate, would exonerate him. I don’t see a lot of point in squabbling further with the WEF over what was and wasn’t on the record.

2. Releasing the tape isn’t just unnecessary; it may be harmful to the War on Terror. So far, the Arab media have been silent about Jordan’s accusations – not because of self-restraint, I’m sure, but because they harvest their anti-American “news” from the U.S. media, which have devoted hardly a word to the controversy. Once there is a videotape, ripe for selective editing, that reticence is bound to disappear. Momentarily satisfying as it might be to see Eason Jordan, live and in color, slandering our military, I’d just as soon that Jihad TV didn’t have the opportunity to present his twisted paranoia to the Arab public.

3. While Jordan’s charges haven’t been converted into Islamofascist propaganda (at least not yet), he had no way to anticipate that happy lack of publicity. Rony Abovitz’s immediate concerns were entirely credible:

I am quite sure that somewhere in the Middle East, right now, his remarks are being printed up in Arab language newspapers as proof that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt nation. That is a real nightmare, because the Arab world is taking something said by a credible leader of the media (CNN!) as the gospel, or koranic truth. What is worse is that I am not really sure what Eason really meant to communicate to us, but I do know that he was quite passionate about it. Members of the audience took away what they wanted to hear, and now they will use it in every vile and twisted way imaginable.

Is Eason Jordan such a fool that the same thought didn’t occur to him? Either he is completely oblivious to the consequences of his words, or he isn’t bothered by their probable use as terrorist propaganda. He has thus demonstrated that he lacks either (a) the intellectual or (b) the moral qualities required by his position (or (c) both).

Which brings us back to “idiot spotting”. The real importance of these events is that they furnish incontrovertible proof that CNN, under its present leadership, is not a neutral news gathering organization. It is, in its leader’s soul if not in every reporter’s praxis, a propaganda arm of the our enemies. During any prior war, any similar organization would have been kept under close watch by the authorities, if not booted out of the country. Nothing of the sort will happen in our day and age, nor should it, but American television viewers should keep in mind, when they flip to CNN, that they are watching a contemporary equivalent of Signal, the Nazi wartime picture magazine. It’s useful to know that.