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The decision made, Swann recaptured his customary mobility, his leaping agility, his concentration and prehensile hands when the whistle sounded to signal the start of Super Bowl X.things will get interesting indeed.
Four times Swann caught Bradshaw passes, one on a 64-yard touchdown play, for 161 total yards.
"The first catch," wrote one journalist, "was incredible, the second unbelievable, the third was merely a standard, difficult, professional reception, but the fourth was a blazing touchdown that earned Swann most valuable player honors."
I can't recall any other Supreme Court case with precisely this lineup. There have been similar lineups; consider part of the Booker/Fanfan Sentencing Guidelines decision, in which Ginsburg, the Chief, O'Connor, Kennedy, and Breyer were in the majority, and Scalia, Stevens, Souter, and Thomas were in the dissent. But I don't remember precisely this lineup. If you can think of a case in which the Justices split exactly this way, please e-mail me at volokh at law.ucla.edu.I'll have to read the opinion, because for what it's worth, I don't get how this is a Double Jeopardy case at all. The judge dismissed a charge in the middle of a trial and then reinstated the charge at the end of the trial, after the trial had proceeded on the basis that the charge was gone to meet it's Maker and joined the Choir Invisible. Isn't it much more of a straight Due Process case than anything else?
But now this particular pigeon has come home to roost. The media's credibility with the American public has been on the decline for years, but what Nixon called the "Silent majority" really was silent. They lacked the media megaphone to which journalists had access and so there was no one to challenge the media's hegemonic control of the culture.It's just people talking. Why won't they listen?
I would have to think that this morning, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, CBS, NBC and ABC ... and CNN ... are or should be embarrassed that they are reporting the dramatic climax of a story they never told their readers about.
The news judgment of the professionals meets the news judgment of the public. And they sure as hell aren't the same.
"After 23 years at CNN, I have decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq," Jordan said in a letter to colleagues.So what's the lesson? That if you're Eason Jordan and you believe the US military intentionally targets journalists you should keep your mouth shut in large groups because someone will find out what you think? Or is it that if you believe the US military does not intentionally target journalists, that you shouldn't pander to a crowd that is more than willing to believe the very point because it makes you look like you believe it too?
"I have devoted my professional life to helping make CNN the most trusted and respected news outlet in the world, and I would never do anything to compromise my work or that of the thousands of talented people it is my honor to work alongside.
"While my CNN colleagues and my friends in the U.S. military know me well enough to know I have never stated, believed, or suspected that U.S. military forces intended to kill people they knew to be journalists, my comments on this subject in a World Economic Forum panel discussion were not as clear as they should have been."
The resignation requires one final comment.Translation: One can only backpedal so fast. Three days ago on the ninth, MacKinnon also had this to say:
I think Eason Jordan resigned because he knew that if the Davos tape came out it would make the situation worse, not better.
What makes me sick is how a lot of people are going to benefit from this whole thing personally, and in some cases financially. On the right, Hugh Hewitt gets tons of book publicity in what is turning out to be a textbook case of the "blog swarm" phenomenon his book describes. On the left, Danny has an opportunity to plug his film. Lots of bloggers are making names for themselves. Yes, there are very legitimate issues on all sides that need to be discussed. I'm not trying to deny or belittle that fact. But most of these issues are not black-and-white. Unfortunately shades of grey aren't as interesting or useful for most people's purposes.Which brings us back full circle to the beginning. If the President of a major news network has a basis for stating in a public forum that US troops kill journalists on purpose, why isn't his network reporting on it? And if he didn't have a basis for saying it, then why did he say it? And if he didn't say it, then why is he giving up so easily?
I remain disappointed in the many journalists who have spent lots of time on the ground in Iraq, and who have failed to do anything to shed light on the substance and facts of this issue - one way or the other. I am disappointed in their editors for not assigning them stories on this issue.
I'm especially disappointed with CNN for the way they're running away from the story, hoping it will go away. It won't. CNN has done itself more harm than good over the last several years by being horribly afraid to stand up for any particular set of principles. It tries very hard to please everybody and offend nobody - but ends up offending everybody and pleasing nobody. No wonder internal morale is low and ratings are bad.
And that was it--the discussion moved on. I'll leave it to others to draw their own verdicts, but here's mine: Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo--rather than outright allegation--is the vehicle of mainstream media bias. Had Mr. Jordan's innuendo gone unchallenged, it would have served as further proof to the Davos elite of the depths of American perfidy. Mr. Jordan deserves some credit for retracting the substance of his remark, and some forgiveness for trying to weasel his way out of a bad situation of his own making. Whether CNN wants its news division led by a man who can't be trusted to sit on a panel and field softball questions is another matter.Captain Ed isn't satisfied.
They will be married in a largely private civil ceremony at the palace, not in a Church of England service. ?There will subsequently be a service of prayer and dedication in St. George?s Chapel at which the Archbishop of Canterbury will preside,? said Clarence House.I could truly give a rat's ass, but I'm not sure that's an appropriate gift, and I don't expect to be getting an invitation in any case. James Joyner, though, has the best response to the "type of service" point mentioned above.
The decision on the type of service reflects the fact that both are divorcees, and that Parker Bowles? former husband is still living. In general, the Church of England, the legally established faith of the nation, disapproves of remarriage of divorced people in church.
What amuses me about this is that the ability of royals to divorce and remarry is the raison d'etre of the Church of England. It not only does not violate tradition, it is its founding principle.
But the situation will be even more dangerous than Coll suggests. Long before a faculty lounge in Islamabad or Riyadh realizes it can build a bomb alone and secretly, the same thought will have occurred to individuals in Tel Aviv, New Delhi or Palo Alto. Any Islamic group that believes it can attack New York deniably should convince itself that no similar group can nuke Mecca at the height of the pilgrim season. In fact, the whole problem that Coll describes should be generalized. The only thing worse than discovering that New York has been destroyed by persons unknown is to find that Islamabad has been vaporized by a group we've never heard of.I'll take the, uh, third crater on the left.
Perhaps in the long view of history it will be President Bush's commitment to "return humans to the moon by 2020 and mount a subsequent human expedition to Mars" that will prove prescient.
During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.Reports of interviews or statements with or from Barney Frank, David Gergen, and Chris Dodd are here. Rony updates his original post, given further developments, here.
Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if he had any objective and clear evidence to backup these claims, because if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park. David Gergen was also clearly disturbed and shocked by the allegation that the U.S. would target journalists, foreign or U.S. He had always seen the U.S. military as the providers of safety and rescue for all reporters.
Eason seemed to backpedal quickly, but his initial statements were backed by other members of the audience (one in particular who represented a worldwide journalist group). The ensuing debate was (for lack of better words) a real "sh--storm". What intensified the problem was the fact that the session was a public forum being taped on camera, in front of an international crowd. The other looming shadow on what was going on was the presence of a U.S. Congressman [Barney Frank] and a U.S. Senator [Chris Dodd] in the middle of some very serious accusations about the U.S. military.
To be fair (and balanced), Eason did backpedal and make a number of statements claiming that he really did not know if what he said was true, and that he did not himself believe it. But when pressed by others, he seemed to waver back and forth between what might have been his beliefs and the realization that he had created a kind of public mess. His statements, his reaction, and the reaction of all in attendance left me perplexed and confused. Many in the crowd, especially those from Arab nations, applauded what he said and called him a "very brave man" for speaking up against the U.S. in a public way amongst a crowd ready to hear anti-US sentiments. I am quite sure that somewhere in the Middle East, right now, his remarks are being printed up in Arab language newspapers as proof that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt nation. That is a real nightmare, because the Arab world is taking something said by a credible leader of the media (CNN!) as the gospel, or koranic truth. What is worse is that I am not really sure what Eason really meant to communicate to us, but I do know that he was quite passionate about it. Members of the audience took away what they wanted to hear, and now they will use it in every vile and twisted way imaginable.
At one point, apropos of something I can?t remember, Ahman said to me: ?I can tell you in one sentence how my country feels about your country.?It's been said before but I'll say it again. Read the whole thing.
?Really?? I said. ?Can you really boil it down to one sentence??
?Yes,? he said. ?And it is this: Thank you for coming, now please leave and take us with you.?