Most of the blogosphere has already weighed in on this surprising OpinionJournal editorial; after reading comments about it on other blogs all day, I finally went and read the whole thing myself: The Jordan Kerfuffle.

It is for this reason that we were not inclined to write further about the episode after our first report. For this we have since been accused of conspiring on Mr. Jordan’s behalf. One Web accusation is that Mr. Stephens is—with 2,000 others—a fellow of the World Economic Forum, thereby implying a collusive relationship with Mr. Jordan, who sits on one of the WEF’s boards. If this is a “conflict of interest,” the phrase has ceased to mean anything at all.

Since Hugh Hewitt has confirmed that Bret Stephens was the author of this editorial, it’s a bit unseemly for him to be defending himself from conflict of interest charges in an unsigned piece.

More troubling to us is that Mr. Jordan seems to have “resigned,” if in fact he wasn’t forced out, for what hardly looks like a hanging offense. It is true that Mr. Jordan has a knack for indefensible remarks, including a 2003 New York Times op-ed in which he admitted that CNN had remained silent about Saddam’s atrocities in order to maintain its access in Baghdad. That really was a firing offense. But CNN stood by Mr. Jordan back then—in part, one suspects, because his confession implicated the whole news organization. Now CNN is throwing Mr. Jordan overboard for this much slighter transgression, despite faithful service through his entire adult career.

That may be old-fashioned damage control. But it does not speak well of CNN that it apparently allowed itself to be stampeded by this Internet and talk-show crew. Of course the network must be responsive to its audience and ratings. But it has other obligations, too, chief among them to show the good judgment and sense of proportion that distinguishes professional journalism from the enthusiasms and vendettas of amateurs.

No doubt this point of view will get us described as part of the “mainstream media.” But we’ll take that as a compliment since we’ve long believed that these columns do in fact represent the American mainstream. We hope readers buy our newspaper because we make grown-up decisions about what is newsworthy, and what isn’t.

So we should all let grownups like Bret Stephens decide which stories are newsworthy, and which are mere “kerfuffles?” It’s hard to imagine how the tone of this piece could be any more off-key and condescending—not just to the bloggers by whom Mr. Stephens clearly feels threatened, but to the readership of the Wall Street Journal.