CQ reader Jim W informs me that Brit Hume spent five minutes on Fox's prime-time news broadcast covering Eason's Fables, bringing the subject up for the second night in a row. Hume had Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, and Charles Krauthammer batting Jordan around, and Jim reports the general gist of it:

Kondracke, no sympathy -- opener and money quote -- "Jordan doesn't have tenure coverage like Churchill."
Liasson, largely negative on Jordan
Krauthammer demolishes Jordan
Hume doesn't offer Jordan any way out
Kondracke closes comments and accentuates the negative conclusion

Jim: "All mentioned the Liberal records of Frank and Dodd, that they were extremely upset by the coments and that '...they don't lie.'"

As soon as I see a transcript on this, I'll review it. Right now we're standing in for Hugh Hewitt's radio show, and we'll be touching on this again tonight!

UPDATE: Johnny Dollar's Place has a transcript of the show. Here are some of the highlights:

MORT KONDRACKE [ROLL CALL]: Eason Jordan doesn't have tenure, the way our friend from the University of Colorado does. Why this is--he's the news director of CNN. If he knows of 12 journalists who have been specifically targeted by coalition forces, that is one whale of a story that ought to be on CNN. And the people, his higher ups on CNN, ought to be demanding to know why this, why he's revealing this off the record in public. ...

LIASSON: Yeah, but I agree with Mort. If he has evidence of this he should come forward. I mean, this is an explosive charge.

The best was Charles Krauthammer. I can clearly imagine him delivering this with his normal gravitas, and I suspect it came across as a devastating critique:

KRAUTHAMMER: And that's why everybody gave him a pass. And they wouldn't have a reason to lie about this. And that they were, obviously, genuinely shocked. And what was shocking was this accusation. So when I, the crime here I think is intellectual cowardice on the part of Eason Jordan. I mean, if he said this and then he tried to walk it back, he wasn't trying to explain it, he was trying to undo it. But then he says in a statement that has been released, he never has believed that American troops have deliberately attacked journalists. Well, if he doesn't, why is he spreading a rumor that he believes is false, malicious, libelous, and will endanger American troops? I mean, you don't truck in rumors like that. He essentially says, now he was just reporting what others are saying. If he thinks it's a falsehood, why is he repeating it? So I think that is the real problem here, and I think as Mort indicated, he did, he's admitted that in the past he's sort of covered up and suppressed news in Iraq because he didn't want to, say, endanger his employees. Well, if you're going to give our news shaded by Saddam Hussein and essentially censored, you ought to either get out of Iraq, or say it openly on the air: the news you are now hearing is approved by this regime, so everybody will know it's not honest news. There's dishonesty here which I think is the real problem.

Joe Scarborough is also talking Eason's Fables tonight, according to CQ reader Sheri T. He called for Jordan to come forward with the facts supporting his allegations of deliberate assassination policies or for Time Warner to fire him.

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