His Sunday column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette makes the point I have been arguing for over a week now:

A controversy you’ve probably heard about, and one that many people haven’t, illustrate why readers cancel subscriptions.

“It’s fun to shoot some people,” Lt. Gen. James Mattis said at a conference in San Diego on Feb. 1. “You go into Afghanistan, you’ve got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. Guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway, so it’s a helluva lot of fun to shoot them.”

Mattis’ remarks caused conniption fits throughout the news media. Typical was the Miami Herald, which said Mattis should have been given a tougher punishment than the verbal reprimand he received from the commandant of the Marine Corps. “His callous remarks make light of the terrible toll of war,” the Herald whined.

Mattis — arguably our most effective combat leader — already has been ably defended by my friends Ralph Peters and Mac Owens. But I enthusiastically second his sentiment. If I were still a young Marine, I would take enormous pleasure in personally sending Islamofascists to hell.

Journalists who got their panties twisted over Mattis apparently see nothing newsworthy about having the executive vice president and head of news for CNN accuse the U.S. military of deliberately killing journalists.

Eason Jordan, who resigned Friday, told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that “he knew of about 12 journalists who had not only been killed by American troops, but had been targeted as a matter of policy,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who was there, and demanded proof, which Jordan could not supply.

The Davos confab ended Jan. 30. Many journalists were there. Yet in my column published last Sunday, I became the first “mainstream” journalist to mention Jordan’s remarks.

If what Jordan said were true, it would be a bigger scandal than Abu Ghraib, about which we in the media have made sure you have heard. And if CNN’s top news executive slandered U.S. troops, that also is — or ought to be –news.

And to those who are arguing that Jordan is somehow a “victim” of blogger McCarthyism, I will defer to the response of the folks who write PowerLine, and were among the most aggressive in pursuing this story:

Now that Eason Jordan has resigned, folks are eager to defend him instead of trying to ignore his situation. The defense comes in two forms: first, that he made a mistake but that the mistake should not have cost him his job; second, that he is the victim of McCarthyism, sacked for expressing unpopular views.

The answer to both defenses is essentially the same. Once strong evidence emerged that Jordan had accused the U.S. military of systematically murdering journalists, his legitimate options were the following: (1) he could try to show, through the tape of his remarks, that he made no such accusation, (2) he could present evidence to support his charge, (3) he could retract his charge and apologize, or (4) he could modify his charge and present evidence to support the new charge.

Jordan opted for none of the above. At that point, the question became whether CNN would be led by a monger of vicious and unsupported anti-American rumors. CNN, hoping to remain distinct from Al Jazeera at least for the time being, apparently answered that question in the negative. Where’s the injustice to Jordan in this scenario?

I will concede that Jordan’s right of free speech allows him to make his sick accusations. Will you concede that the exercise of free speech also comes with consequences? Jordan was told to put up or shut up. At the end of the day, CNN told him to shut up. Works for me.