The Easongate Blackout Continues

I watched about 80 percent of Howard Kurtz’ CNN Show ‘Reliable Sources” and he made not even a mention of Eason Jordan’s accusations.

In desperation, I also watched Wolf Blitzer’s “Late Edition” in the vain hope that maybe something might surface there (hey, I said it was a vain hope, right?). As it happens, Blitzer has as a guest, Senator Christopher Dodd, who reportedly was in the audience when Jordan made the comments. Blitzer let the whole long segment go past withot asking a single question about what he heard in Davos.

Like I’m surprised.

I realize that these are both CNN programs and Jordan is one of the Supreme High Muckitymucks of CNN, but I’m calling shenanigans on both Kurtz and Blitzer. I’m not even going to play the “they’re supposed to be ‘objective’ journalists and ought to pursue the story regardless of whether it involves their boss or not” card here. I have another point to make.

Both Kurtz and Blitzer have reported in the past on the “yes man” criticisms of President Bush. Both of them have freely pulled the trigger on stories where adminstration critics have nearly crucified Bush for not having “voices of dissent” in his administration and have praised people like Colin Powell, and others for bucking the administration policy line publicly.

So for people to let them off the hook because the story involves their boss doesn’t fly as an excuse. If Richard Clarke was a courageous maverick for bucking his boss in public, then their coverage of this story would be equally courageous. They can’t praise people like Powell and Clarke for doing what they did and then not step up to the plate and cover this story without looking like unprofessional hypocrites. If neither of them think this isn’t a story, then say so. If the story turns out to be so much “he said, he said”, then tell us. But report the story and get to the bottom of it. Don’t wuss out on it because Eason Jordan’s your boss. They ought to show some professional courage themselves instead of cherry-picking the easy stories and leaving the hard ones to the bloggers.

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Category: Easongate