Easongate Updates

Instapundit has a great round-up, scroll up, scroll down. Geraghty is especially worth reading.

And a special shout-out to Slublog, who found another CNN big strongly suggesting that journalists were being deliberately targeted.

He didn't get the fabled Instalanche, but he did get a Captainlanche. (And, I guess, an Instalanche by proxy.)

And Hugh Hewitt remains indispensible, as always.

Slicing the Baloney, Again, Update: The Boston Globe deigns to report on the story:

Representative Barney Frank, who was on the panel, told The Boston Globe yesterday that attendees ''perked up" after Jordan made remarks that ''sounded like accusing the military of deliberate targeting." Frank said Jordan then backed off a bit, saying he wasn't indicating that such targeting represented US military policy.

But just because he backed off from saying it didn't represent "US military policy" does not mean he's backed off from saying that individual soldiers are targeting journalists deliberately, does it?

And another witness -- a French journalist named Justin Vaisse -- says that's precisely what Eason Jordan suggested:

Eason Jordan made it clear that it was in no case the policy of the Army or the Pentagon or any institution to target journalists; he said that incidents were due to individuals. But he said that it happens in a certain environment, in a climate of tension vis-à-vis the journalists because of the war, where "Rumsfeld sets the tone" in his public comments. "That is unhelpful," he commented. He also said that some in the journalist community think that some in the armed forces deliberately target journalists. He didn't think that himself but did notice a very high level of animosity of some soldiers, esp. young one, towards the journalists, including American ones (not to speak of Al Jazeera reporters).

So Howie Kurtz' claim of a "walkback" -- a walkback he suggests fully exonerates Eason Jordan -- seems perfectly dishonest. Jordan may have walked back the idea that this was officially sanctioned US policy, but he then went on to say that individual US soldiers were deliberately and knowingly killing journalists.

This is a "walk-back"? This is the "clarification" that's supposed to put the story to rest?

posted by Ace at 04:49 PM

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