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From the Kerry Spot on National Review:

A LITTLE MORE COLUMBO, AND A LITTLE LESS SLEDGE HAMMER

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Kerry Spot [ jim geraghty reporting ]
[ kerry spot home | archives | email ]A LITTLE MORE COLUMBO, AND A LITTLE LESS SLEDGE HAMMER

I was exchanging emails with another blogger, Paul, who asked the good question, “Aside from "forcing" the resignation of Jordan, what is there to accomplish? Can CNN be shamed into behaving better?”

The question deserves some thought. What has the goal of the blogs in this case been? In the case of the CBS memos, it was pretty clear – to confirm suspicions that the memos were fake, and then squeeze a retraction out of a stubborn network digging in its heels.

Calls for Jordan’s resignation or firing appeared almost immediately after the initial reports of this. While I think making an accusation of murder on stage, at the Davos forum, and then not offering any proof is awfully shaky behavior for a news executive, the length of Jordan’s employment at CNN is ultimately up to his bosses. In my humble opinion, calls for Jordan’s dismissal shouldn’t come before calls for the release of the videotape of the event.

I replied to Paul that, “I'm starting to think some bloggers A) want to "get" Jordan the way it was widely perceived that the blogs "got" Dan Rather and B) use this event to promote their blog and get media appearances, writing gigs, etc. … All of this is putting the cart before the horse. Job one is: Just what did Jordan say?”

We have heard accounts from Abovitz, MacKinnon, Gergen, Frank, Dodd, two accounts in French from Bernard Rappez, and Justin Vaisse and Jordan and Sambrook. The first seven sources offer accounts that are essentially the same – Jordan made the accusation, Frank challenged him, and Jordan backtracked. How much be backtracked and how clearly he rescinded the charge vary from account to account.

By comparison, Jordan and Sambrook paint a scenario where the CNN executive didn’t really make the charge, the controversy was really stemmed more from misinterpretation on the part of the audience.

With the score 7 to 2, we think we know what happened. The fact that Abovitz and others are calling for the release of the tape, and Jordan isn’t, suggests that one side is more confident of what that tape would show than the other.

But before anybody can demand stiff consequences for Jordan, we ought to get the facts clear on just what he said. Rony Abovitz’s account is pretty damning. Others are a bit more of a gray area. A couple of folks suggest that this is just a lot of hype over a Jordan “misstatement.” I humbly submit that “Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country” is a misstatement. This sounds – in most of the accounts – to be something a bit bigger, and a bit more deliberate.

Unfortunately, I think the effort to get to the bottom of this has been hampered by… an eagerness to get to the full-throated denunciation of Jordan before the fact-gathering is finished.

Let’s be honest about the power of the blogs – it is great and was unimaginable in an earlier era, but it is limited.

And the blogs alone didn’t “get” Dan Rather. Nor Trent Lott, or did they single-handedly bring the accounts of the Swift Boat Vets for Truth to light. At some point in all of these stories, members of what is sometimes too-easily labeled the mainstream media got interested (often hearing about them from the blogs), couldn’t resist their news-worthiness, and decided to write or broadcast about them. And by doing so, they brought the story to the attention of millions of readers and viewers who, alas, don’t read blogs every day.

For whatever reason, many, many mainstream media institutions have decided to take a pass on this story. Maybe they can’t sort out the “seven folks said one thing, Jordan and Sambrook say another” contradictions. Maybe they think that only a bunch of guys in pajamas care about this. Maybe they sympathize with Jordan, and feel an element of “there but for the grace of God go I” humility. Or maybe they want to work for CNN someday.

In the face of all this, it’s important that those of us who think Jordan’s comments deserve more coverage act… rational, balanced, evenhanded, and shed more light than heat.

I just came across a transcript of the first discussion of this on a cable news show, on Kudlow and Kramer, on CNBC, on Monday.

KUDLOW: We got a couple of seconds before the break when you guys are all going to come back, but, Ann, I just want to give you first whack at this. Eason Jordan, top news executive at CNN — I mean, to me, this is absolutely incredible — this guy says at a big conference in Davos that the US military is deliberately targeting and assassinating American journalists. Huh? He still has a job, huh? You got a take on that?

Ms. COULTER: Would that it were so!
KUDLOW: Would what were so?
Ms. COULTER: That the American military were targeting journalists.
KUDLOW: Oh, no! Don't go there.
Ms. COULTER: No, but, I mean, he immediately — it was just an incredibly cowardly thing to do. He says it, he immediately backs down to — from the statement that it is official government policy to be targeting journalists to, `Oh, it's just a rumor I've heard' and it might just be a few random individuals about which he has no facts, so it's a story that's not only implausible but not particularly interesting to what he has backed down to.

A little later in the discussion:

KUDLOW: Ann Coulter, I want to go with you. I'm going to give you the last word on a completely different subject, but I know you have knowledge on it. General Wayne Downing, a retired four-star, former head of special ops, told this show Friday that basically the time had come for surgical strikes in Syria. Do you have a quick, concluding thought on that?

Ms. COULTER: Yes, they should do that right after targeting the journalists.

Well that’s just great. Here we are, trying to convince journalists to pay attention to this story, trying to persuade them that Jordan’s comments warrant coverage, trying to get them to push Davos to release the tape, and Ann Coulter, in the very first comments of the very first television segment on this story, has to joke about how great it would be if the American military targeted journalists.

To use the metaphor of T.V. cops, as we bloggers try to build a public consensus that the tape ought to be released in order to clear the air, we need a little more Columbo, and a little less Sledge Hammer.

[Posted 02/09 08:16 PM]