In a sense, it was a very liberal thing to do, reject the status quo and embark upon something new, something that favors freedom over all else. And the President's policy is already paying dividends in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and even Saudi Arabia.
But I digress...
The fact is, accusing our troops of targeting the media is just stupid. Even worse, after Jordan realized how badly he looked, he tried to lamely backtrack and cover himself. He set himself up for the fall. Bloggers did not orchestrate a campaign against him, they just demanded accountability for his words.
I'm glad that Jordan resigned. He should have been fired, but if CNN had done that, Jordan might have decided to say too much about how things really work inside CNN. I would still love to see the tape of him making the comments, though.
Also, I was encouraged by the fact that those who were targeted by CNN, using my quote, were very gracious in their messages to me. We exchanged emails, they listened to my perspective, and that was that.
Were they, at the very least, disappointed in some of what I said? Yes they were; and I don't blame them.
The fact is, we must always back our troops, especially during a time of war. But, some of what I put in my post, intended to provoke a debate, were used to defend a man who sees our troops much the way al Qaeda sees them. That thought thoroughly depresses me.
There's no defense for Jordan, and certainly no excuse. The only way to describe the blogger swarm which forced Jordan to resign is "a job well done."
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
Article comments
1 - KOB
Nice post and good analysis, but I think the idea that bloggers are uniquely influential is off the mark.
The good bloggers are cut from the same cloth of columnists " one-man operations syndicating their work.
So, yes, someone who has good, verifiable information, or original analysis and publishes it (I don’t care what medium) can have substantial impact. Author Upton Sinclair, columnist Jack Anderson and pamphlet publisher Thomas Paine proved that many times over.
But blogger swarms, made up of people with nothing interesting or new to say, won’t have impact. Mob behavior is contemptible and incoherent. And my suspicion is most bloggers who weigh in on political issues find the idea that they are part of a “swarm” offensive.
2 - Deano
I'd be careful dancing too early over the events in Afghanistan or Iraq, as both are still balanced on the knife-edge, Iraq probably less so than Afghanistan because fundamentally Iraq has more strategic value, more US troops, more economic assistance etc. to the US and others, and so draws more attention and support.
Afghanistan has a long-standing ingrained habit of instability. My guess is that a significant percentage of the opposition in Afghanistan is waiting patiently for the US interest to wan and then, quite probably, it will be business as usual for the warlords,...unless Karzai, with foreign assistance, can build up enough of a military and alliance power base to control more than just the regions around Kabul.
Weirdly enough, despite probably being one of those "liberals" who you paint as unsupportive, I've always had decided mixed views on the Iraq war. I'm perfectly glad that Bush handed Saddam his head. Given the horrific abuses he has heaped up over the years on the Iraqi people, Personally I had no real qualms about his regime coming to a bad end and some type of democratic government emerging.
My main sticking points came from several areas: First, the blatant and deliberately misleading attempt by the Bush government to leverage 9-11 and WMD arguments to justify the war in Iraq. Although it is now being portrayed as a "noble enterprise" for democracy and shifting the balance in the Middle East (and it very well may turn out to be one - maybe), that is not and was never the primary (or even the secondary) reason behind the war.
The second reason was the devestatingly bad impact that Bush's actions have inflicted upon the international system and our own western alliance. While offending France might not seem to be a big deal to many (and they do tend to get offended if you so much as look at them sideways), the overall impact of Bush's actions have been to reduce much of the slowly built up, mutually beneficial system of alliances and international controls to disparate pieces. For the last 100 years, out of the ashes of WWI and WWII, the international system has built up a system that helps to place limits (albeit mostly self-imposed limits) on the actions of states with an objective to reducing the crippling tit-for-tat wars and alliances that permeated the last two centuries of history. The reason, bluntly, is we cannot afford another such conflict.
By placing the US outside of the purview of its allies or international institutions, the US is essentially now acting as a rogue state...because it can. How long do you think other nations will sit back and watch before in this brave new world that Bush has pushed forward, they start to act for their own interests, in an unrestrained manner.
Who cares, you ask? Well, if Bush is unsuccessful in mending fences and reestablishing international norms, in a few years you will start to see an arms race like you have never seen before...and if you think nuclear, chemical and biological weapon proliferation is bad now, wait and see.
So in the end, Bush's actions might have been great for Iraqi freedom and democracy, and wholly satifying in eliminating Saddam, but will it have a long-term impact on global security? I don't know. If he continues to spurn multilateral solutions and approachs, the long-term impact will almost certainly be negative.
3 - Steve S
They took one particular sentence of the post
Sucks when one side's methodology is used on them, I suppose.
He accused them of targeting the media, not because he had any proof, but because he is against the war in Iraq.
So has Nancy Grace asked you on her show yet to psychically read other minds?