Crossing the Eason Jordan

The blogosphere is aflame over this story that has had scant mention in the Main Stream Media (MSM):

The scandalous remarks of Eason Jordan, CNN's top news executive, last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the failure of the major media to report them suggest the distortions [of Iraqi "insurgent" strength - *Rick] are deliberate.

Mr. Jordan told a panel that the U.S. military had killed a dozen journalists in Iraq, and that they had been deliberately targeted. When challenged, Mr. Jordan could provide no evidence to support the charge, and subsequently lied about having made it, though the record shows he had made a similar charge a few months before, and also earlier had falsely accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists.

Once more we have a prestigious member of the MSM saying things (apparently repeatedly) without substantiation that besmirch the American soldier and by extension American foreign policy. 

And once more we have a major media pretty boy being bluzzed by a blog swarm because main stream media outlets refuse to follow up.  Yet these same news types are all over the G.I. Joe abduction fraud and the Marine general who enjoys shooting terrorists. 

Thankfully, like stink on poop, La Shawn Barber, Captain Ed, Hugh Hewitt and a host of others are doing the job that ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mouthpieces for Bush policy opposition are failing to do.

Sadly, Vanderleun thinks it will all be for naught.

To take on an Eason Jordan and expose him would be a noble thing for a major journalist to do, but it would also put a large check mark against his name on the Unwritten Blacklist as a traitor. Even if Jordan were brought down, especially if Jordan were brought down, the journalists behind it would find their chances for other lucrative job offers, for advancement, and for invitations to all the right parties in New York, Washinton, and the Hamptons severely curtailed. Their actions against an Eason Jordan would be quietly noted by those in hiring and assignment positions higher up the media food chain. After all, to take on one is to take on all.

I hope Gerard is wrong, I suspect that he may be more right than wrong. 

Time will tell. 

Time or Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report or some other major publication ought to tell.

We won't be holding our breath.

UPDATE:  Matt links to a new blog devoted to what is now being called EasonGate.  Probably a great place to stay abreast.

MORE: Cox and Forkum weigh in:

ONE MORE UPDATE:  La Shawn continues to be an excellent source of info on this, although I'm slightly... I dunno... put off, by the following:

I appreciate each of you, readers and commenters, and all the bloggers tracking back to my posts. Keeping up with the this story has been actual work, and I didn’t quite expect it to be.

The hardest work of all, I’ve discovered, is staying on the radar screens of high-profile bloggers also following this story. Getting inside the loop is one thing. Staying there is another. I have to constantly make people aware of my quest to be the go-to “Easton Jordan blog swarm background blogger.” I missed Rathergate, so I wanted to be involved in Easongate. Doing things like this is how you build readership and make a name for yourself in the blogosphere so that you’re not dependent on high-profile linkage if you’re trying to be high-profile yourself. Did that make sense?

Yes La Shawn... it makes sense... in the most uncomfortable of ways... I worry however about your attempt to be the story, rather than report it...

Comments

[Richard Wing]

I have posted what follows at all the main blogs involved in the Easongate controversy and am watching both sides squirm in this expose! I personally agree with neither side but in liew of the attitude and slant put on most of their stories emenating out of Iraq by the MSM, I do believe the tactic of targeting journalists is not a bad one! When you join the enemy and cavort and praise his side over ours you become one of them!.....(here's the post and e-mail)

To: Chester
Subject: A comment on Easongate
Cc: terrier_manchester@yahoo.com;, bill@billroggio.com

And posted as a comment on the weblogs of Blackfive & Blue State Conservatives & Easongate

Dear Chester & Bill:
This may come as a shock to you .... but there are many of us out here in etherland, who think it is a good and correct tactic, that reporters in Iraq be targeted for elimination and we feel no compassion or pity, but rather a bit of glee & justification when one of them gets knocked off! This is because of the slant that is put on the articles they write about our troops and the overall anti-American slant to their stories.
Is there any wonder that the troops look with disdain on the reporters? I personally think they are reaping what they have sown! They are not supporting the troops or the objectives of the USA in the Middle-east and thus are a detriment to world peace and our homeland security! If I were a soldier in the theatre, I would definitely feel more imperiled and at jeopardy with these reporters all around. When reporters align themselves with the enemy (to get closer to the action or to be on hand for the action – or for whatever reason) they become the enemy and as such are justifiable targets for our forces to strike and eliminate!
Too many people think war is a game like on Nintendo where after the action everyone gets up, dusts themselves off, and reloads for the next action .... Sorry, the game is not played that way .... it truly is a life & death struggle! The people in the WTC on 9/11 did not get up and resume their lives after the building came crashing down….nor did the people in the Pentagon or on the airplane that crashed in the field in Pennsylvania!
War is not a clean game .... remember as a soldier or a Marine, you were taught to kill people, and break things .... and to take and hold objectives by whatever means you can employ! AND .... I refer you to the following as an admonition on how to fight a war-on-terror, especially the rules (Do's and Don'ts for a super power) to fight terror!
http://www.ceto.quantico.usmc.mil/papers/WHEN_DEVILS_WALK_THE_EARTH.pdf
Richard the Lionheart
P.S. This does not in any way mean that I approve of Eason Jordan .... I just happen to think the tactic of targeting journalists in this war is appropriate and in the interest of our troops and the foreign policy of the USA, especially in view of the conduct of the journalists themselves ... particularly those at CNN!