Good point, Mitch. And while I'm not a frequent visitor to all of the left-of-center sites you mention, I can say that Atrios and Kos are two that continually raise the body count of dead soldiers out of protest of the Bush Administration's policies, er, I mean sympathy for the fallen HEROES. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Now that the HEROES have been accused of intentionally targeting journalists, the left is in a no win situation. So they remain silent. Cowards.

Mitch,

Maybe the reason that bloggers on the left aren't making a big deal about Jordan's comments are because he didn't say what all the bloogers on the right claim he said. That's what the people who were present when he made his remarks, including David Gergen, say. See for appropriate quotes and links:

According to those actually present this is what Eason said:

"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."

If that's all that he said, why exactly do you all want his head?
/jc

Because it's not all he said.

He also referred to "direct targeting" at a press conference in Portugal in '04, of journalists by the US and Israeli armies.

By the way, what people "actually present" at Davos are you referring to, Slash? Because other people *actually* present question the account you present.

Here's a pretty fair summary:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/003775.php

Go ahead, google "Rony Abovitz" of Forumblog and "Rebecca MacKinnon". Their accounts pose questions to the anonymous account you cite above.

As to why we want his head: We want ALL THEIR HEADS. WE'RE TAKING OVER.

What needs to be done is a blogger led, nation wide boycott of CNN's sponsors. If successful this would scare the paints off of ABC, CBS and NBC.

What? Eason Jordan said something dumb?

Alert the media! Dog bites man!

The reason we're not obsessed with Eason Jordan is:

1. We don't care what he said. He isn't us. He's the head of a network that nobody on the left respects, either, and

2. We're having more fun with "journalist" "Jeff Gannon." Funny, haven't seen much of that from the righty bloggers....

The Left webloggers are too busy outing a White House softball reporters.

Jeff Gannon? Of Talon News?

Whooie. Next thing, Kos'll be telling people that Freepers are wierd.

Jeff: What is the Left's problem with Jeff Gannon? That he actually does RESEARCH and QUOTES HIS SOURCES ACCURATELY? God forbid someone not from the NYT or WaPo knows what the job of "journalist" entails.

That's why we don't have much to say about the man; he covers who-what-when-where-why-how. Unlike many "credentialed reporters" who write op-ed pieces masquerading as "objective reporting."

Mitch,

The "anonymous" quote I posted above was only anonymous because the link I posted didn't come through again. Something wrong with your comment system, but no mind.

The quote was from Richard Sambrook, the Director of BBC News, who was present when Jordan made his comments. Here, again, is how he described what Jordan said:

"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."

Here's another link:

http://snipurl.com/coe7

If you continue readin the link, you'll see that this version of events was confirmed by another person present, former Nixon, Bush, Reagan, and Clinton advisor, and now editor-at-large for U.S. News & World Report, David Gergen. Obviously a liberal conspiracy.

We better boycott USN&WR, though, just to be safe.
/jc

Jeeez, Slash - you were better off when you left your cite off.

"Mahablog" leaves out a lot of key context; Jordan (and his associate, Cramer) has a long history of this sort of thing (to which I pointed you yesterday). He makes these claims when he's overseas, to media audiences largely hostile to the US - and then pleads "context" when he's called on it (which never happened until bloggers started outflanking the major media on stories like this).

"Mahablog" also completely ignores the Abovitz and MacKinnon accounts (both of whom were direct witnesses, speaking *against* interest), while harping on Howard Kurtz' softball story (which, like you and "Maha", ignored history while giving excessive weight to Gergen's post-conference backpedalling).

You can keep ignoring history and the witnesses that don't agree with you, Slash, but it's all still out there.

By the way - Mahablog? Gack. You'd do as well citing "Democrat Underground". The guy's a know-nothing Atrios-wannabe.

By the way, Slash - since I can't respond on T5C from work: Sambrook's account is directly at odds with Abovitz and MacKinnon. Sambrook is speaking in his (and Jordan's) interest, while Abovitz and MacKinnon are both speaking against their own interest.

It gives me great pleasure to remember how giddily you poo-poohed Rathergate.

More, Slash?

*Audience member Rony Abovitz reported that "During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others."

*Audience member Rebecca MacKinnon wrote: "I was in the room and Rony's account is consistent with what I heard."

*Audience member Justin Vaisse writes that Jordan "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".

*Sen. Dodd was was unquivocally "outraged by the comments" Jordan made.

*David Gergen confirmed that Jordan did in fact initially assert that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military "on both sides" and that Jordan went on 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."

*Rep. Barney Frank confirmed as well that Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military and that Jordan "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.

As I reported earlier today, Rep. Frank also mentioned that he asked Jordan for more specifics about those cases. But from the Kurtz article we learn that Jordan now says Rep. Frank has a "misunderstanding" with Jordan about expecting any further response.

(http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001455.htm)

Make sure you run off and tell everyone on T5C about this, k?

Hehe! Good work! -ipod nano skin
ipod nano