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Garance Franke-Ruta in The American Prospect
...Jordan... was brought down not by outraged citizen-bloggers but by a mix of GOP operatives and military conservatives.<...>
Certainly there were some citizen-bloggers involved in the anti-Jordan effort. Easongate founder Bill Roggio, 35, is a computer-software analyst in Medford, New Jersey. His blog, The Fourth Rail, demanded that CNN release the video- or audiotape of Jordan?s comments in Davos. Roggio started Easongate.com on Saturday, February 5, with a couple of right-wing and military blogosphere buddies, Michigan-based Brian Scott (of The Blue State Conservatives) and Josh Manchester (of TheAdventuresofChester.com). Like Roggio, Manchester served in the military, leaving active duty as a U.S. Marine only recently. Scott, a Republican and member of Right to Life of Michigan, started his blog to further his dreams of becoming a conservative talk-radio personality.
As Easongate got cooking, the trio quickly reached out to ?BlackFive,? a former paratrooper and prominent military blogger in Chicago who declined, in an e-mail interview, to reveal his surname (his first name is Matt). Blackfive brought in Cheryl, a 48-year-old advertising sales representative from southern California who asked me not to use her last name; she gave the group pro bono marketing services and helped to set up a database of CNN advertisers to be contacted. The team even tried to get an active-duty military officer to join their clique. The officer declined.
Ahem - that was me, and my non-participation brought the total number of military members involved in Easongate to zero. Now let's review: "Jordan... was brought down not by outraged citizen-bloggers but by a mix of GOP operatives and military conservatives." I suppose in some minds "former military = military", but in that sense we could likely refer to a lot of Prospect writers as McDonalds fry chefs. A correct statement would be "Eason's charges brought quick response from a small group of veterans who were eager to discover the truth."
My reason for declining to participate is simple: as the project was ramping up I was returning from Iraq and wouldn't have time. But I confess this excuse also released me from having to make a real decision whether or not to get involved. Honestly I still wouldn't have joined in, and my reasons should be obvious. One, as a military guy it's hardly surprising that I'd respond "no we don't" when I'm being accused of murdering journalists. It's more effective to let others with a less obvious personal stake fight the battle. Two, my involvement would open the project to specious charges that it was being run by the military.
Which is basically what the author of this poorly executed bit of tripe has done any way. In essence she's leveled yet another unfounded charge against the military, and a correction and retraction would be appropriate.
I was recently interviewed by a reporter for another national magazine (that project is still in the works, so I won't reveal names) who asked me "Do you take any personal credit for the demise of Eason Jordan at CNN?"
I didn't take the bait. I told him that "credit would be the wrong word. The whole bloggers 'got' Jordan thing is media spin, most bloggers didn't want Jordan, they wanted the truth, and didn't get it. But the spin facilitated a round of media stories about the "climate of fear" that blogs are imposing on mainstream media." I stated that prior to hearing about this Prospect piece, which coincidentally contains the most flagrant example of climate of fear reporting yet:
But there?s another a key difference between the effort against Gannon and conservative blog firestorms: The targets of the liberal blogosphere are conservative activists; the target of the conservative blogosphere is the free and independent press itself, just as it has been for conservative activists since the ?60s
Ahhh the '60s - that halcyon heyday of conservative activism...
Actually, the truth is that based on eyewitness accounts Jordan got away with making an unfounded accusation of murder. All any blogger wanted was the truth, if no left wing blogs joined in the demands, then that is to their discredit - if not an indication that they endorse Jordan's position.
Here's a good comparison - an example of a blog-related investigation into a crime. Last year an Iraqi blogger told a story on his site about a distant relative his family had told him was thrown into a river by US troops. According to his story the guy drowned and no one was investigating. Glenn Reynolds linked the post and a huge uproar followed. But the story sounded so outlandish, so implausible, that a lot of bloggers were waving red flags on their sites. But the result of all the attention was a military investigation, and it found that this seemingly outrageous story was true. They had dumped the guy into the river. When that was discovered the same bloggers who previously cried foul immediately posted things to the effect of "I was wrong and I admit it". Both Glenn Reynolds and I followed this story to it's conclusion. I could provide a lot more links than these; but the bottom line is that this is a story where justice was served, in large part due to blogs. (For the record Instapundit, Healing Iraq, and Chief Wiggles much more so than Mudville).
And that's what was sought in the Jordan affair. What did he really say? Can he support it? Are troops targeting and killing journalists? Or is this the sort of thing that a major American news organization's executives routinely utter without expecting anything but nods and winks in response? Murder is a damned serious charge, but instead of an investigation we got a resignation.
The moral? CNN doesn't put the same emphasis on truth and justice that the US military does.
But this brings us to part three, and let's see how many can make it through this tough lesson.
Turning our attention to a different case - I received this email today:
Subj: Letter to Pres. Bush, Armed Services Senators & the U.S. MarinesSince it is too late for Due Process to be applied to the 1500 plus deaths of U.S. Marines in Iraq, it certainly is not too late to apply same to Lt Ilario Pantano who, under the UCMJ, is likely to be charged with the murder of 2 suspected Iraqi insurgents.
Lt. Pantano is a combat veteran of both the 1st Iraqi war and the present one, including spending 8 months in the Sunni Triangle and the battle of Fallujah. He gave up a lucrative career to fight for America and the family he left behind, twice.
The prisoners he was overseeing during an SUV stop, adjacent to an arms cached house, turned into an attempted flight by the 2 insurgents, who has been talking to each other in arabic. When ordered to STOP, they continued to move in front of him. Not knowing whether his life was in danger Lt. Pantano shot both insurgents dead.
There is no such thing as an unarmed Iraqi insurgent. When someone is willing to give up their own life to kill you, at any cost, the description of unarmed becomes a negligible factor.
Due Process must be forthcoming; however, the benefit of any doubt must also be given to Lt. Pantano, with the regard to be given anyone in a combat zone, that has been under fire for months.
The charges against Lt. Pantano should be dropped, both for his sake and for the sake of all American military personnel that dedicate themselves to both repaying and repelling any and all, both past and present, dangers to America s and the worlds FREEDOM.
President Bush, although you have not spoken directly to this matter, it is my hope you will make your wishes known and, if necessary, based on the events described above, and your rank as THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the Armed Forces choose to have any upcoming charges against Lt. Pantano dropped, and or he be pardoned.
It's part of a growing web swarm supporting Lt Pantano. On the surface a noble cause, but I'll decline to get involved, thanks, other than to pass on these facts.
Ilario Pantano had everything going for him, great career, wife, friends.. then on 9/11 he gave it up to rejoin the Corps.
Sgt. Daniel Coburn, a 10-year veteran with service in Panama, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo - says Pantano shot two detainees in the back.
The individual who sent me that email wasn't there.
There's an effort to mobilize blogs to support Pantano, but those who rush to defend one of the two men are by default accusing the other of a rather heinous crime - murder, or the false accusation thereof. Sound familiar? Here are elements of the Jordan case and the Healing Iraq case all rolled together. Once again, I'm glad I'm not the judge. But this story has differences from the previous two. In this case the wheels of justice are already turning. A mob will not resolve it, the military justice system will.
Trial-by-blog will not replace the rule of law. Blogs will ensure that.
Blogs can do positive things. More information is good - and people now have a tremendous number of ideas at their fingertips. But the reality is that bad ideas are out there with the good (see the TAP article above for one example, or the email that calls for actions that would reaffirm the paranoid delusions of it's author for another), and often many people are willing to embrace them without much second thought.
Thankfully, we bloggers have blogs to point out our mistakes.
