Sen. Dodd On Imus: "Davos Ought To Release The Tapes"

Se. Chris Dodd appeared on the Imus in the Morning show and was asked about the Eason Jordan/Davos controversy.

Sen. Dodd said that "Davos ought to release the tapes".  He then went on to say that Eason Jordan himself ought to support the release of the tapes in order to defend himself, speculating that Eason Jordan's job was, or might be, "on the line".

Sen. Dodd broadly confirmed the version of events that seems to have emerged (at least as I understand it):  Jordan made some "outrageous" remarks about the Pentagon targeting reporters, Barney Franks called him on it, and Jordan backpedaled for the next fifteen minutes.

Sen. Dodd thought the tapes would clear up the extent to which Jordan backpedaled, and give a sense of just how successful that backpedaling effort was.

[A brief note: I heard this on the radio while driving; folks who TiVo'ed the MSNBC broadcast will have a more complete version.  That said, the phrases in quotes are verbatim].

Now, a quick quip - as to the question of why, if the "targeting reporters" allegation is true, CNN has not done a story on it, surely the answer is obvious - they are still reporting under Baghdad Rules.

MORE:  Gotta love "Spellcheck", which clamors for "Sen. Dodd" to be "Sen. Dodo".  We long ago saluted the programmer who thought that "Krugman" should be "Ragman".

UPDATE:  Excerpts at Sisyphean Musings:

Sen. Dodd: "... In fairness, Davos ought to release the tape because you're getting a lot of speculation. Eason Jordan's claiming he said one thing and those of us in the audience thought we heard something else. So in fairness to him Davos ought to get the tape out and he ought to ask for it so that there's no equivocation trying to read into people's interpretations of what he said."

...Imus: "Well who's it up to ..."

Sen. Dodd: "Davos. The people at Davos. They have tapes of all of these panels. Usually they don't like to that that, but I think when you got a controversy like this, and I presume Eason Jordan's job may be on the line over this, then it seems to me that he ought to be the first one to say, 'Look get the tape out', so we can put an end to these rumors if in fact his interpretation of what he was trying to say is accurate and those of us who heard it is a bit different. Then the best answer for him is to get that information out so you, and others, can watch it and draw your own conclusions about it."

A BIT LATER:  Eason Jordan to resign.  Whoa.  We are going to be insufferable now, baby.  (Weren't we?)

Comments

[Paul Zrimsek]

If they'll just release the damn tape we can all stop obsessing over it. Eason Jordan is to the blogosphere what Scott Peterson is to the MSM.

[bendover]

Tom,

With all due respect, I don't beleive that Sen. Dodd has had anyone on his staff actually call those in charge of the WEF to release the tape. All he did was mouth a meaningless opinion that the tapes should be released. I hope I'm wrong, but as they say "talk is cheap".

[bsp]

Methinks Barney Frank should be sending Mr. Jordan some #10 grit vasoline to tide him over for the next couple of weeks......