An amazing thing happened on Friday afternoon: Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, resigned. (Note that CNN released this awkward news late on a Friday – just like presidential administrations.)

Why did he resign? Because of the minor furor set off by his comments at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland. He was on a panel concerning the media. A fellow panelist was Congressman Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat; the moderator was David Gergen, fixture of the Washington establishment.

All Mr. Jordan did was let slip that the U.S. military in Iraq was targeting journalists – for murder. Congressman Frank “went nuts.”

That’s the way it was reported to me. I did not attend that particular panel, but I was in Davos. And two journalists of my acquaintance had been present.

According to their reports, Congressman Frank said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” (I paraphrase.) He would not simply let this slide. “Are you saying this is a deliberate policy? This is a momentous deal. Your network has reported this, right?”

Well, no, not exactly – not at all. Mr. Jordan began backpedaling, sensing he had gone way too far. Mr. Gergen, apparently, was stunned – stunned that the allegation had been made at all.

One of my reporter acquaintances said that, after the panel, Mr. Jordan had been surrounded by Arab attendees, congratulating him on having the “courage” to voice the hard truth. Did Mr. Jordan eschew these congratulations, or disabuse his admirers? No – he thanked them. (Again, this is how it was reported to me, and I have no reason to doubt it.)

Hearing this, up in the snowy Alps, I thought, “An outrage, to be sure – but nothing will come of it. CNN will be CNN. Dog bites man.”

But, to my astonishment, the Jordan matter became a story back home. It did so for a couple of reasons: An Internet service of the Wall Street Journal, “Political Diary,” circulated a report. And speaking of the Internet, the World Economic Forum, for the first time, had set up a blog – and on that blog, someone attending that panel, Florida businessman Rony Abovitz, wrote up what had occurred.

Then right-leaning bloggers across America got a head full of steam. (Why left-leaners shouldn’t care about slanders committed by news executives is interesting, but that is for another day.) For the most part, the mainstream media wouldn’t touch the story.

But enough journos, mainstream or not, were aroused. They called up Barney Frank, and David Gergen, and also Sen. Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who had been in Mr. Jordan’s audience. Soon “Easongate,” as it was dubbed, became something like unignorable.

Mr. Jordan had been in the news before. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the CNN chief published a remarkably candid op-ed piece in the New York Times, admitting that his network had long withheld horror stories from Iraq. One wonders what they are holding back in Cuba – although one doesn’t have to wonder much. Many Cubans despise CNN almost as much as they do the regime that oppresses them.

Davos is not exactly a hotbed of pro-American sentiment, and Mr. Jordan found a largely receptive audience for what the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens – who was present for the panel – termed his “defamatory innuendo.” It took the likes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd to call him on it.

This is one of the things I have discovered at Davos, year after year: Liberal Democrats may abhor the Bush administration as much as the French press does, but once they get a taste of sheer anti-American bigotry, they become rather defensive. All of a sudden, such congressmen as Mr. Frank, Edward Markey, and Sander Levin look like George S. Patton, Douglas A. MacArthur, and Curtis E. LeMay.

On that very World Economic Forum blog, Congressman Frank rebuked the Davosers for a mindless anti-Americanism.

To see the typical American journalist at work in Davos is a hoot. Given a chance to question some head of state or foreign minister, he is apt to say, in essence, “I think George W. Bush is a dangerous Bible-thumping moron. Don’t you agree with me that President Bush is a dangerous Bible-thumping moron?”

I witnessed a classic scene this year. A reporter for a major liberal American network explained to a top figure from a major Middle Eastern network that “if you really want to understand the American mindset, you have to watch Fox News,” because the great unwashed stare at it all day long, ending up ignorant and warlike.

But let us hail the new media age! Thanks to diversification, it actually matters that Dan Rather attends Democratic fund-raisers and pushes fabricated documents. It actually matters that the chief news executive of CNN says something outrageous, to a crowd largely prepared to lap it up.

I’m not sure I welcome Mr. Jordan’s departure, however. Just as Christiane Amanpour is the perfect foreign correspondent for CNN, and Judy Woodruff the perfect domestic voice, Mr. Jordan was the perfect news chief.

Will someone more circumspect take his place? Better for true colors to fly, in my view.

Mr. Nordlinger is the managing editor of National Review.