CNN's silence on Jim Clancy speaks volumes

In July of 2010, after the death of Hezbollah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh, I was the first to report about CNN correspondent Octavia Nasr tweeting about the death of Hezbollah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allāh, saying that he was "one of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."

Within 80 hours, Nasr was gone from CNN. An internal CNN memo said "we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward" because of her one tweet.

Now, compare that with the entire series of offensive tweets that CNN anchor Jim Clancy spewed out last Wednesday night. He lashed out at anyone who pointed out his obvious mistake of claiming that none of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons made fun of Mohammmed, claiming that anyone who showed him to be wrong was part of a "Hasbara team," that pro-Israel tweeters like me are part of an anti-Muslim public relations campaign and implying that being pro-Israel meant being against human rights. He seemed to think that an anti-semitic tweeter was really a false-flag pro-Israel tweeter. He also used the offensive term "cripple."

By Thursday morning, Clancy seems to have realized that his possibly drunken tweetfest was not the smartest idea, and he deleted many of his tweets, although not before they were saved. But he continues to block anyone who even refers to his offensive tweets; judging from Twitter it appears that scores of people were blocked.

Since then, the story of Clancy's meltdown has been in Breitbart News, the Washington Free Beacon, MediaLite, Newsbusters, Algemiener, Israel National News, Honest Reporting and other media sites.

Yet we have heard only silence from CNN.

Clancy exhibited shockingly unprofessional behavior that was borderline antisemitic and blatantly anti-Israel. This by itself disqualifies him from reporting on any Middle East topic. CNN is clearly aware of the criticism, and for every hour that it remains silent, it gives the impression of supporting an old-boys network rather than caring one whit about professionalism and objectivity.