tuesday morning quarterback sacked

[rone]

So, Gregg Easterbrook, a fancy-pants brie-eatin' chardonnay-sippin' elitist who makes a living as a writer and editor, was the writer of Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com's Page 2 until sometime after last week's entry when he was canned by ESPN.com due to an entry in his Easterblogg in which he brutalizes Quentin Tarantino and his latest movie due to the violence and general lack of substance therein (and in all of Tarantino's oeuvre). So far so good... but then he runs off the rails and starts dissing Miramax, run by some guy named Weinstein, which is owned by Disney, run by some guy named Eisner. Then he points out that they're Jewish, then he talks about the worship of money. His editor lays blame about this whole mess on, among other things, "the hubris of this whole blogging enterprise." Easterbrook has apologized with the unimpressive-sounding, "Of mangling words, I am guilty." The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has a good collection of quotes (and links thereto). Here's a choice of quotes:

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Relying on his limbic system instead of his cerebral cortex, Easterbrook dismisses movie violence as unimaginative, hackneyed, and trite with an argument that is as unimaginative, hackneyed, and trite as you'll ever read.

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Easterbrook's case is not helped by other aspects of his apology. In one, he recounts how he joined a particular Presbyterian congregation specifically because it shares facilities and finances with a synagogue. Experienced readers will find it a bit like the old "some of my best friends are" argument.

Worse, in his apology and in an interview with the New York Times Thursday, Easterbrook pointed to a column he wrote last week, assailing Mel Gibson for a history of violent filmmaking while defending his controversial re-creation of the Passion. "I raised the exact same question about a Christian," Easterbrook said Thursday, and "there was not a single peep."

In that same essay, however, he attacked Catholic biblical scholars who have criticized Gibson's script as anti-Semitic, as well as the Anti-Defamation League, which has expressed similar reservations. "The ADL has a financial interest in accusing Gibson of anti-Semitism," he wrote, "as the organization raises money using this charge ... how better to get publicity and pry open checkbooks."

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In a statement about the firing yesterday, ESPN called Easterbrook's remarks "highly offensive and intolerable."

A rep for the network said that the decision was made in-house, and not on Eisner's instructions.

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Don't forget, kids! Arabs are Semites, too! Fight back against people who use "anti-Semite" in lieu of "anti-Jew".

On a lighter note, Easterbrook's "Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish" is very evidently a ripoff of Cartman's classic "Spielberg? Jew. Lucas? Jew. Kyle? Jew. Coincidence?"

So what was my point after all this natter? People is dumb. And ESPN should have never canned Easterbrook over this crap, because it obviously didn't affect them — but because Easterbrook named Eisner (and outed him as a Jew! *gasp*), it looks to anyone like good ol' fashioned payback.

Comments

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Don't forget, kids! Arabs are Semites, too! Fight back against people who use "anti-Semite" in lieu of "anti-Jew".

"Fight back against a century of common usage!"

Ahem.

(I'm happy to replace it as soon as anyone suggests a euphonious and obvious candidate.)

[coldsleep.livejournal.com]

TMQ was the only thing that made Tuesday bearable. At least, while at work, cruising the web.

The article in question, though, could have, at the least, been more thought out. Or something.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Don't forget, kids! Arabs are Semites, too! Fight back against people who use "anti-Semite" in lieu of "anti-Jew".

The reason to use "anti-semitism" instead of "anti-Jewish" is because "anti-semitism" refers specifically to Jews. The argument that Arabs are Semites, too, is an argument that some Arabs have used to justify their anti-semitism.

When you come over tonight, take a look at my copy of Rabbi Telushkin's Jewish Literacy for a more indepth explanation of the issue and why this argument is inadvertently offensive.