Mr. Jordan, can we be Frank?

I'm taking the hand-off here from Kate Marie and following up on the Eason (don't call me Michael) Jordan resignation. If you're not up to speed on the story -- and since the MSM is ignoring it -- you might not be, here it is. Eason, Chief News Executive at CNN, took it upon himself at the Davos Conference to accuse the U.S. military of targeting and killing journalists in Iraq. Just why they were killing these journalists is a bit fuzzy but it's safe to say the implication was that they blow'd them up good because they simply didn't like what they were saying.

Are you following me thus far? And if you are, aren't you thinking to yourself, "Wait...Who was accusing the U.S. military of this, Michael Moore? The National Enquirer? Barbara Streisand? The guy on the street corner with the blow-horn and the rainbow wig?" (Remember the Rainbow Man?) I digress.

No, no. This wasn't some wacko nut case who sleeps on the street corner cuddling his feather boa; or some fat movie-maker who gets the hook from a stage as he rambles incoherently about the "fictition" of orange alerts or (remember Orange Bang? Hard to find these days) -- I digress again -- or some woman who thinks Yentl is a masterpiece of cinema. No! This was the friggin' Chief News Executive at CNN. This guy puts on a suit and makes decisions about the content of information that is to be disseminated to the American public under the auspices of "truth".

But, regardless of the recklessness to which this guy abandons his journalistic duties to promote his own agenda, what really irritates me is the disingenuousness of his resignation statement. Here's what he says via Kate Marie's link:

I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise.

Now let's contrast this with the first-hand account of a reporter who was at the Davos Conference via Jim Geraghty, who first broke the story:

During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan [chief news executive of CNN] asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. 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.

You're right, Mr. Jordan, you didn't "imply" ill intent, you expressed it in no uncertain terms. And if you would argue that this account is false, then why don't you simply release the tape of the event which CNN refuses to do?

Here's the best part of this story, however. Guess who was the first to question Jordan about this at the conference and instigate the firestorm? None other than Barney Frank (HT: Gay Patriot). Barney, you've been heralded by some as a hero here, but my tendency is to think your inquiry was based more on a rabid desire to promulgate this story rather than to unwittingly blow its cover. Either way, your hand in this almost makes up for your heretofore disturbing existence in American politics.

Barney Frank's supporting role in all of this is just priceless. As a grisly old cowpoke once said, "It's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself..."