Bloggers: The New Bogeyman

Another subject people are asking me about is Eason Jordan, and, "Rush, why haven't you talked about this much?" The main reason I haven't talked about it, and I'll be very honest, is because it started out as a blogger issue. The whole first week -- well, whole first week, three to five days, three to four days of the first week -- it was a blogger issue, and, folks, I have to tell you, it didn't surprise me. Now, maybe I need to take a longer vacation, but Eason Jordan? Here's a guy who wrote a piece in the New York Times, an op-ed explaining that they suppressed news about the brutality of the Saddam regime so as to not get kicked out of Baghdad, so as to not have their bureau kicked out. So -- admittedly in the New York Times, -- Eason Jordan said (summarized), "Yeah, we sort of hid the brutality of this regime because we needed a bureau there." Now, my reaction was: "What good's a bureau there if you can't tell people what's going on? Why do you want to be there?" I don't know how many of you know this, but Eason Jordan credited Fidel Castro with the invention of CNN International.

Eason Jordan was lecturing in 1999 the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and he admitted that the idea for CNN International was inspired by Castro. Castro was watching CNN and he loved it, thought it was fabulous, and he wanted to meet the guy responsible for it. It was Ted Turner. So Turner who had never been to a communist country at that point went down to meet with Castro, and Castro said (summarized from the Spanish), "You gotta make this available all over the world," and Eason Jordan was happily proclaiming that Fidel Castro was responsible for the creation of CNN. As Jim Geraghty at NRO writes today, "If you call CNN with a complaint or a suggestion they'll hang up on you or not listen to you, but if Fidel Castro calls, they'll act on it." Now, that's what he says. So Eason Jordan says that he's got evidence -- well, he didn't say evidence -- Eason Jordan says that the US military was targeting journalists. Well, where was that news on CNN? If he knew that, why were they suppressing that? Why was that not a news story? Why won't they release the tapes of what he said? You know, I think the bloggers are being credited for getting him fired.

I don't think he got fired. He quit. And that's, you know, all well and good, but, frankly, there's a part of me that wishes he hadn't. I mean, Dan Rather doing forged documents at CBS is what ought to be the norm, is it not? That's who CBS is. Dan Rather and forged documents: that's CBS. Eason Jordan as a news executive even though he'd been demoted over the years with the changing regimes there. I don't know, folks. I just didn't see it was that big a deal. And I'll tell you this. I think we're going to run into trouble if every time somebody on the left says something we make it our business to get 'em thrown out of work. Don't need to do that. Let 'em speak. Let 'em be who they are. We're benefiting more from that than anybody could possibly imagine, and I think it would have made a much -- you know, CNN didn't go forward to do a story on what Jordan said. They made no effort to release any information to back up what he had said. He didn't make any effort to make the tapes of his remarks public or any of that, that wouldn't have surprised anybody anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: It appears, ladies and gentlemen, speaking a little bit more here on the Eason Jordan situation, it appears to me, and I've been around long enough, because all this stuff has happened to me, so the stuff that's happened to me when I see it happen to others, I claim expert status. And I'm an expert on this. It seems to me that bloggers have become the new bogeymen in the mainstream media. You remember Matt Drudge when he first came online shortly after Lewinsky, shortly after breaking the story that Newsweek spiked? What did the mainstream press lament and complain about Matt Drudge? "Weeeell," they said, "He has no editor. He has nobody editing this stuff. Well, he's just free to put whatever he wants out there! There's no check and balance. Why, he has no credibility." The same thing they said about me when I started. "Oh, he's just on the radio, and this guy, there's no editor! There's no check and balance. He says whatever he wants. He lies! He makes it up," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So now they're doing the same thing to the bloggers. First off they're pajama-clad and now they have no editors and they're not even funny and they're just a bunch of know-nothings and they're just a bunch of blowhard pointy-head academics that couldn't succeed at anything else and that's all they are. This is all being said by the mainstream media.

Now, I'm going to add something to that, I think the mainstream media is happy to be out there picking on the bloggers, and in some cases Peter Jennings loves some of the bloggers. Peter Jennings actually I saw the other day was praising some of the work the bloggers do, not on the Eason Jordan thing. I think certain elements of the mainstream press love the bloggers in the sense that they can take attention away from the power of talk radio by crediting the bloggers for having all this influence. When they credit bloggers for a whole bunch of influence -- and there was a story I guess the Washington Post, New York Times, forget which -- Bloggers credited for shaving the head of Eason Jordan. I think so they loved writing the story in one sense because they didn't have to say talk radio did it. I think they're really worried about talk radio and they look over here at the bloggers and they can give the bloggers some credit here and there as a means of relegating talk radio to (brief William F. Buckley, Jr. impression), uh, irrelevance, which they have wanted to do for the last 16 years and have been unable to do. So the bloggers are their latest attempt to do that. But beyond that, most of what they say about the bloggers is not crediting. It's not complimentary or any of that. They're out there saying the same things that they said about me and the same things they said about Drudge are now being said about the bloggers.

Meanwhile, who is it that's on the fritz? It's the mainstream press. You talk about making it up? You talk about no editors? How about the editors at CBS and the forged document stories? You know, at Fox News, I have to tell you this, they haven't had to retract one story, major story that I can recall since they've been on the air. CNN's had to retract Tailwind. CNN's had to have Eason Jordan out there explaining why they didn't tell the truth coming out about Baghdad. We don't retract anything we do here because we never lie and make things up on this program. But the mainstream press is on the fritz, be it Jayson Blair, be it Janet Cook -- whatever her name was, Janice Cook, whatever -- be it bad spelling, poor grammar, faulty analysis, whatever, the mainstream press never looks at itself. Oh, take that back! They're constantly looking at themselves, and their introspection is always one of excuse-making. I just I find it amazing. The mainstream press as it exists today was constructed, when do they claim that they came of age, the current mainstream press? World War II, right? That's what put TV on the map. Murrow, Douglas, Edwards, Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, all those guys go back to the golden age. You have to go back. That's where World War II produced these guys. So 1940 was 60 years.

Sixty years of the mainstream press. There hasn't been a new model of mainstream media introduced since and they've yet to call in a repairman for their fixes. Who are they to be passing all this judgment out. "Weeell, you can't trust the bloggers! Weeell, you can't trust Limbaugh. Weeell, you can't trust Drudge! There's no editing out there?" Can we trust CBS? CBS just the Friday before the Super Bowl, the Friday before the Super Bowl did the Donovan McNabb story on me as though I had said what I said that week! They went back and got tape that's a year and a half old and tried to pass it off as tape from two weeks ago, CBS Evening News Dan Rather, played the tape for you yesterday. So I find it amazing that these people continue to sit on their lofty perch and pass judgment on whether anybody else has any credibility here. But make no mistake about it here: They're trying to do to the bloggers exactly what they tried to do to me and what they tried to do to Drudge and in the case of me and in the case of Drudge they have failed, and they will fail where the bloggers, the blogosphere, whatever you want to call it, is concerned as well. This is how they deal with competition, by the way, is to try to besmirch the competition and discredit it. Same way liberals deal with conservatives: Try to discredit rather than debate the ideas and maybe do something and try to do it right.

Well, I usually like Rush, but I think this is a very odd column. His listeners are asking him why he didn't join in on the Eason Jordan campaign, and he basically never answers the question. Except, apparently, he thinks it's a pity that Eason was fired. It would have been better to leave him in place.

I don't think so.

Then he gets into the bloggers as bogie men business. His only objection, apparently, is that the MSM is emphasizing the bloggers because they want to distract attention from the really important conservatives--on talk radio.

Quote: "I think certain elements of the mainstream press love the bloggers in the sense that they can take attention away from the power of talk radio by crediting the bloggers for having all this influence." Unquote.

I really don't understand this, unless he's saying that his nose is out of joint, because bloggers pulled off a coup and he didn't. No, Rush. We're all in this together. We need you to help spread the word. And when you have something good to say, we'll help you spread your word. That's how it works--everybody pulling together. It won't weaken Rush, it will strengthen him, because as I've been saying this past week, things go a lot faster when Rush and Drudge and all the boys jump on board and spread the word.

RE: I really don't understand this, unless he's saying that his nose is out of joint, because bloggers pulled off a coup and he didn't.

I did not read the entire column.

During his visit to the Bay Area of San Francisco KSFO's Melanie Morgan was part of the program. I believe she said she met Rush's new squeeze, a CNN reporterette.

Could this answer some questions?

Daryn Kagan is Rush's new galpal.

Much as talk radio was the driving force for many a year, it is now the internet (bloggers) and Rush must know that talk radio is going to be left behind much as print and electronic media was left behind.

Great column by Rush. He's right, the bloggers are the latest threat to the liberal MSM and must (in their minds) be discredited.

Jayson Blair, Rathergate, Tailwind, Eason, Janet Cooke, Hale Rainey, Glass at NR, it goes on and on.

Let's not forget the MSM is practically a one-stop employment agency for out of work Democrat politician and political aides.

I think we're going to run into trouble if every time somebody on the left says something we make it our business to get 'em thrown out of work.

We're not getting them thrown out.

rather was going to retire on the same date before "memogate",Eason Jordan quit.

We don't jump on every stupid leftists' comment.Like the patriots of the American Revolution ,we are shooting at the officers,and like the British were in shock,the old media is in shock.

We have shown a light on the old media,and they scurry for cover like the cockroaches they are.

I certainly hope we are not so foolish as to go down that road. As a collective we are strengthened. We start knocking down our allies we'll only succeed in rebuilding the MSM. Talk Radio is extremely influential and should not be diminished.

This commentary was very awkward, imo. Rare for Rush.

I assume he would prefer Jordan had been left in place as he prefers Churchill be left in place. To continue talking and driving people away with the realization of who these people are. Reasonable position, I advocated that Rather be left in place for same reason. Still Jordan resigned, and I suspect, because that tape included other half profiles applauding in agreement.

I do think he may have a point that the MSM is trying to edge talk radio out to diminish it, and are using blogs as a tool but it's not the only reason. They hate they have been made vulnerable to the masses through this medium.

I did cringe at the comment he delayed speaking of it because it was a "blogger issue".

Not a good monologue on his part today. Too many open ended comments, didn't feel he was getting to the heart of what he wanted to say.

Talk radio gets most of it's information from the net.

Talk radio reaches far more people than the bloggers can because everyone is not on a computer.

I believe Sean made a huge difference with his tours of Ohio, it kept the excitement fresh and the voters energyzed.

It's a joint effort but for many of us, we've outgrown Rush, Sean and the other talkers.....we have FR, and we have many many folks who have expertise in lots of areas. For now WE RULE.....

"Not Rush's best moment. On the edge of conherence in this rant."

Agreed.

"I think we're going to run into trouble if every time somebody on the left says something we make it our business to get 'em thrown out of work. Don't need to do that. Let 'em speak. Let 'em be who they are. We're benefiting more from that than anybody could possibly imagine..."

Nope. Sorry, El Rush-bo. We need to have a few heads on the block from time to time, to remind the pukes out there that we're serious, and we're gunnin' for them.

We've got Boxer. We've got Teddy. We've got Dean. We've got Kerry still hanging on until the last vote is counted...we've got a full plate as it were for daily entertainment. Nothing wrong with cutting a few of the media off at the knees, is there?

Unless you afraid that we'll turn on YOU one day soon? LOL! (Watch your back...)

O-kay.

I don't feel I've "outgrown" Rush, but perhaps that's just me. I listen to him as I read others around here because everyone offers a slightly different take. I don't actually need Rush, FOX OR this board or blogs to learn the news for myself. The importance is in the different insights people bring to the table and the forum for back and forth discussion. Eventually this reaches level of activism and through that we're are successful by having as many nets to reach people through as can be found. This includes the net, but it also includes talk radio, cable and I hope to branch out eventually into entertainment.

I maintain it is a mistake to go down a road where anyone is deemed to have been "outgrown". Go down that road and we'll develop the arrogance and elitism of the MSM. Our goal should be to maintain ground and continue expansion to forums we haven't yet reached LIKE Hollywood.

I haven't outgrown Rush. Most of his columns are on the mark, and his show continues to provide an irreplaceable service. I just didn't like this particular piece.

FR can dig stuff up, but we don't have the reach and the audience to follow through in most cases, without help from people like Rush. There really isn't any competition between the internet and the talk shows.

I thought that after clinton left office, things might slow down at FR after all the good work that was done exposing the Bent One. Without public enemy number one to work against, there might be less to do. I'm happy to be proved wrong. I think Drudge HAS slowed down since billy jeff left office, but FR is more active than ever, and there are still plenty of targets.

Rush should think the same way. One Eason Jordan down. So what? There's still plenty more to talk about, and there will continue to be plenty more for the foreseeable future, because I don't expect to see Utopia any time soon.

Yes, I didn't like the piece either. Perhaps to elaborate I feel he didn't say what he really wished to say, and so was left with what is posted above. I have a feeling I know where he was going and I would have disagreed with him, but wish he'd said it rather than skirting around his thoughts. One minute the awkward comment about it being a blogger issue...next minute stating emphatically we'd survive as Drudge did..as he did.. equating us on rising level of comparative influence.

Not a great piece and it is rare I don't like something from him, even when in disagreement.

As to the other, my greatest fear is falling prey to the same vanities that overtook the MSM. Elitism, arrogance, power hungry. We haven't gone down that path yet but it's wise to be aware of that vulnerability to prevent its occurence.

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