Thursday, February 10, 2005
Another Easongate Witness
Here's why Brett Stephens at the WSJ says:
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.
Another news source pretending to be unbiased, but actually belonging to the "US delenda est" club, I see.
Hugh Hewitt talking to Larry Kudlow last night:
HH:.... I predicted that this week there would be a breakout of the Eason Jordan story, and it's in the Washington Post, page C-1, Howard Kurtz, The Boston Globe, The New York Sun today. You did talk about it last night with Ann Coulter and John Fund, which immediately spread around the blogosphere instantaneously, as validation that this was indeed controversial. Eason Jordan has a problem. CNN has a problem. Time Warner has a problem. They've spent a lot of time building this new brand, "The most trusted name in news," and now they're the most busted name in news.
Because the fact is he made claims about which the weight of evidence suggests, the weight, there's some contrary evidence out there, and we can't get the videotape, that the American military targeted and killed twelve journalists. In November of last year, Larry, Eason Jordan told a different foreign audience that he believed that an American military had abducted and were torturing journalists. Clearly a lot of paranoia here, a lot of controversy at the Davos conference where on January 27th, Eason Jordan made these remarks, and the blogosphere has probably had 1,000 posts from big bloggers to little bloggers that have reported the story.
LK: We've got eyewitnesses, here. And one of them is liberal Congressman Barney Frank, usually no friend of the war and so forth. But apparently, he is up in arms. Hugh, big question is, there is a tape of the proceedings. So if Jordan says, "I didn't say it," then the tape is going to tell us one way or another. Who's hiding the tape?
HH: The Davos beauracracy. My producer, my radio producer (me) contacted the gentleman who's got the tape last week. At first he said I don't think I'm going to give it out. Then another blogger called him and he said okay, I'll get it to you as soon as I unpack it. Someone got to him, and they retreated, and now they're declaring that it was an off-the-record session, which is odd since so many people have reported on it. Senator Chris Dodd as well as Barney Frank, another Democrat, Senator Dodd, reported yesterday he's outraged by the comments that were made by Eason Jordan at the time. David Gergen up at the Kennedy Institute of Government has kind of helped out Eason Jordan. But most of the evidence that is out there, that is moving at the speed of sound around the blogosphere, is coming to the conclusion that Eason Jordan has something to hide, and that he's very happy this tape isn't out there. The question that needs to be asked of him and CNN and of Time Warner are 'are you in favor of the truth?' Ask Davos to release the tape. Ask them to put it out there so we can see it and decide.
