Eason Jordan Gannon Guckert Tinker Tailor Solidier Spy

[I started this piece out with the theme being that I was a little bit uncomfortable with the strong ideological sides many of us have taken in these two stories (myself included). I realized towards the end, however, that the implications of the Eason Jordan story are huge. We cannot underestimate the importance of what just happened with Eason Jordan and the dangerous message that it sends about free speech. I am less uncomfortable with taking sides now after thinking the issue(s) through more carefully again.]

This has been an important week for blogging - a week in which not one but two mens' careers have been ended due largely to relentless pressure from the blogosphere. There is blood in the water and it is delicious. We are drunk with our power. Who is next?

Something about the Jordan/Gannon situations taken together as a whole doesn't sit right with me, however. On some level, it feels like such partisan hackery to be simultaneously engaged with both of these stories on the sides that I am as a liberal.

I have defended Eason Jordan's right to think and speak freely. I've recognized the nuance to what I believe he was trying to say and that whatever he did say wasn't broadcast using CNN as his soapbox. I am critical of the lynch mob that was out to get him precisely for not respecting his free speech rights and stubbonly refusing to consider Jordan's nuance. I've noted cruel irony in the fact that some of the very people attacking Jordan cite the military's toil to preserve freedom as a reason for their saintliness - why they should be above criticism. Do these people have no concept of what this freedom they refer to is supposed to mean?

On the other side of the fence, with Gannon, I feel stronly that the story is one of ham-handedness. A stupid, clumsy subversion of the system by Gannon and his good old boy handler, Texas Republican Eberle. Not the end of the world by any means, but by no means an act of integrity or honesty. This is an example of conservative cynicism at its worst, and everyone involved should be taken to task for it - Ari and Scott and GW included. The Victoria Plame affair was already a shameful childish embarrasment for this country - that Gannon was part of it as well is an indicator of the class of amateurs that are running the show behind the scenes in the White House.

So here I stand feeling conflicted in my ideological corner with my ideological allies throwing rocks at Gannon and his protectors in their corner and shielding Jordan from the rocks being hurled at him. How did we end up here?

I would like to believe that the positions I have taken with regard to these stories was arrived at through analysis and distillation of the facts at hand processed along with my own value system. If we strip away ideology and party affiliation and consider the hypothetical case of a fake journalist with a checkered past using a pseudonym gaining access to the White House every day and being provided with classified CIA documents, I have to believe that most of us, regardless of our political stance, would have view this as problematic.

Similarly, as with Eason Jordan, if "a high-profile business executive" made a statement that was critical of the US military and later retracted it, I certainly wouldn't intrude upon this person's life and career and insist that he reign or be fired.

If you step back and look at what just happened with Jordan it truly is absurd. A gang of cyber-bullies from the land of the free and the home of the brave destroyed a man for expressing an opinion on something about which he was an expert. What he said may or may not have been misinterpreted. In light of the controversy surrounding his opinion he restated his opinion to that of a fact - that indeed some journalists had been killed deliberately, not because they were journalists, but by friendly fire as opposed having been killed as a result of collateral damage.

The teeming mob landed blow after blow on Jordan until finally in an act of desperation he commited sepakku. The mob, overjoyed with the fruit of their labor then turned and said, "Well that proves it! If he wasn't guilty, why did he quit?"

This is a dangerous development - far more dangerous than a band of Republican oafs in Texas and Washington playing "Editor, Insider and Pimp." A message has been sent - not necessarily deliberately, but a clear message nevertheless: Everybody plays by our rules now.

---