What happened? I tried to find links to the article he wrote that caused the trouble but the links were dead. I liked reading his stuff in TNR, Atlantic, Slate and of course ESPN... anyone got a quick summary to what he said and why he was let go? thanks
OK, I did some digging. Read his blog, http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml You can see that his most recent entry talks about a column he wrote about Kill Bill criticizing Disney executives for putting it out, which I guess people thought was anti semitic. Since Disney owns ABC, and ABC owns ESPN, it's not hard to guess why they kicked him out of their site. I wonder if he'll go back to Slate.com now like he used to be?
He put his foot in his mouth, he should not have brought up the executive's religion in the first place to make his point, maybe the fact that they believe in God, but nothing beyond that. I'm sure he wasn't taking a shot at Jews though. I personally dislike when columnist point out that a specific group should detest something more because of that group's history. I find it a very condescending technique to tell someone else how they should feel because of who they are.
here's an overview from opinionjournal.com. please feel free to ignore the usual partisan jibes. it's too bad, i really loved his TMQ column on espn.com. what i find disappointing is the way ESPN has become such a bastion of political correctness as evidenced by it's handling of both Rush and Easterbrook. -- BY JAMES TARANTO Monday, October 20, 2003 3:29 p.m. EDT The Easterbrook Kerfuffle Nature abhors a vacuum, so last week, with the Valerie Plame and Rush Limbaugh kerfuffles having died out, a new controversy erupted to take their place. It began last Monday, when Gregg Easterbrook, a senior editor of The New Republic, posted an unedited essay on TNR's Web site panning "Kill Bill," the new Quentin Tarantino film, for excessive violence. Easterbrook concludes as follows: Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself. Blogress Meryl Yourish was outraged (emphasis in original): Did he just blame Jews for being greedy, money-grubbing Hollywood executives partly responsible for today's real-life violence? Did he just say that because of the Holocaust, Jews should know better than to allow films that depict mindless violence to be made on their watch? And is he actually implying in that last sentence that Jewish film executives are partly responsible for Muslim terrorism? Other bloggers, notably including Hollywood-based Roger Simon, weighed in with denunciations. By Friday the New York Times was on the case, as was the Anti-Defamation League. Saturday's Los Angeles Times carried an opinion piece by media writer Tim Rutten, titled "If It Sounds Like Anti-Semitism, Maybe It Is." Over the weekend, ESPN fired Easterbrook as a football commentator. No, we're not mixing him up with Rush Limbaugh. Easterbrook had been writing an idiosyncratic and highly amusing column for ESPN.com called "Tuesday Morning Quarterback." ESPN not only sacked him but purged him from history in a manner reminiscent of the Ministry of Information in "1984." Go to the ESPN homepage and try searching the site for "Easterbrook." It won't even let you do the search; it just takes you back to the homepage. (Easterbrook's pre-ESPN work is still available at Slate.) Even Easterbrook's critics, Yourish and Simon among them, say his firing--unlike Limbaugh's, for comments not made on ESPN--was excessive. Anyway, it appears to have been motivated not by political correctness but by sheer pettiness: Disney, whose CEO Easterbrook criticized, owns ESPN. ESPN's defenestration of Easterbrook, as well as the denunciations from the ADL and the L.A. Times, came after he posted an apology: "Nothing's worse, as a writer, than so mangling your own use of words that you are heard to have said something radically different than what you wished to express. Of mangling words, I am guilty._._._. I'm ready to defend all the thoughts in that paragraph. But how could I have done such a poor job of expressing them? ._._. Looking back I did a terrible job through poor wording. It was terrible that I implied that the Jewishness of studio executives has anything whatsoever to do with awful movies like Kill Bill. ._._. What I wrote here was simply wrong, and for being wrong, I apologize." The ADL's Abraham Foxman deemed Easterbrook's mea culpa "insufficient": "Instead of making a clear apology and a rejection of anti-Semitic stereotypes, Mr. Easterbrook says he 'wrote poorly' and was misunderstood. Mr. Easterbrook's remarks reflect either absolute ignorance or total bigotry." Foxman's beef against Easterbrook may be personal too; on Oct. 7, Easterbrook defended "The Passion," Mel Gibson's forthcoming movie about the life of Jesus Christ, which has raised ADL hackles, and he wrote: "The ADL has a financial self-interest in accusing Gibson of anti-Semitism, as the organization raises money using this charge." Those who've commented on the Easterbrook kerfuffle fall, roughly, into two camps: those, like Foxman, who believe his original posting was an expression of classic anti-Semitism, and those who don't know what to make of it. An example of the latter is blogger Josh Marshall: "What Easterbrook said was weird and something a hair's breadth short of ugly. ._._. Try as I might to explain to myself how Easterbrook could have unwittingly walked into such an unfortunate formulation, I still find it a bit difficult. What was he thinking? I go back and forth. I'm not sure." Well, allow us to explain. Easterbrook's essay was an expression not of anti-Semitism but of a lesser, though still insidious, form of prejudice. Call it liberal condescension. This sentence from his apology reveals all: "How, I wondered, could anyone Jewish--members of a group who suffered the worst act of violence in all history, and who suffer today, in Israel, intolerable violence--seek profit from a movie that glamorizes violence as cool fun?" "Members of a group": This is the language of liberal identity politics. And note that this is a philo-Semitic prejudice, not an anti-Semitic one. Easterbrook's premise is that the suffering of the Jewish people ennobles Jewish individuals--or should--even if those individuals have not themselves suffered. Thus he presumes to hold Jews to a higher moral standard by virtue of their Jewishness--though in fact all he's doing is asking them to agree with his highly debatable opinion (does it really make any sense to liken stylized Hollywood violence to the Holocaust?). Ideologically, Easterbrook's earnest criticism of Jewish studio executives is of a piece with Maureen Dowd's racist rant against Clarence Thomas. Because Thomas is black, Dowd, like other liberals, expects him to conform to liberal orthodoxy and thus treats his conservatism as a far greater offense than that of, say, Antonin Scalia. This kind of prejudice may not lead to pogroms and lynchings, but it's divisive and often ugly all the same.
-- I like Gregg Easterbrook but he brought someone's religion into an argument where there was no call for it. Secondly, Disney owns ESPN, so he made two mistakes. Criticizing Disney is one thing, but critisizing Eisner specifically, what should he have expected?
well, i think it's clear he wasn't thinking, i just think it's a shame because i thought he was an extremely talented writer whose work i found consistently entertaining and illuminating. and it's sad that espn, which cultivates an air of subversiveness and hipper-than-thou reparte should be exposed as just another over-sensitive, politically correct, american corporation.
he often critisized disney in his columns on espn (sorry, no links left-file not found! try googling "tuesday morning quarterback easterbrook" and then click on the espn links). it was part of his schtick. yes, he went too far, and if this was the only recent case where espn had acted like this, i'd say no problem espn. but the way they purged all his columns, and in light of the the whole Rush fiasco, it sure looks like something more insidious.
I will admit that I've read very few Easterbrook articles, but I'm guessing by criticizing Disney or ESPN, he did it in the same way that Bill Simmons does. He simply went too far this time by calling out his boss' religion. I don't think this makes ESPN too P.C. or whatever. It's not like he referred to someone as a midget in his article and was fired. He insulted his bosses by bringing up one of the worst, if not the worst, acts of man ever in connection with the release of an over the top movie.
I guess you're not Jewish. I have not read Easterbrook before (knowingly, anyway) but that blurb he was quoted as writing was very offensive. I don't see how you equate these remarks as "hip". Before you come back and say you did no such thing, read what you wrote again (if Easterbrook had done that, he might still have a job).
no, i'm not jewish, but i'm probably one of the staunchest supporters of israel on this board, although i haven't participated in most of the harangue-a-thon threads on that subject. i did not say easterbrooks comments were hip in this regard. rather, i said espn cultivates a "hipper-than-thou" atmosphere. bill simmons writing is an example. watch sports center and stuart scott sometime to get a sense of what i mean. Olberman (when he was on sports center), Eisen, Kenny Mane all indulge in this sort of irreverant banter. i think the firing of easterbrook, the purging of everything[i/] he wrote for them, plus than handling of the limbaugh kerfluffle demonstrates it's all show. no question, espn was w/in it's rights- i just feel like the veil has dropped and we're seeing a disturbing example of corporate mind-control at work.
nice letter from the editors in the new republic. to me this would have been a better response from espn/disney/eisner. slap him down, let him take his punishment, perhaps apologize in TMQ, and start a dialog on the ease with which anti-semetic ideas can creep into our culture. -- _ A LETTER TO OUR READERS Gregg Easterbrook, Anti-Semitism, and the Question of Reputation by the Editors Only at TNR Online Post date: 10.20.03 To our readers: We are sorry. Last week Gregg Easterbrook wrote an item in his blog for tnr.com about the moral culpability of Hollywood executives who profit handsomely from movies that glorify violence and depict it with pornographic vividness. In the course of his denunciation, Easterbrook referred to "Jewish executives [who] worship money above all else." Many readers found the remark offensive. They were right. The phrase was right out of the classical vocabulary of modern anti-Semitism. We make no defense of these words and we are mortified that they appeared under the auspices of a magazine that has for many decades been in the forefront of the campaign against anti-Semitism and bigotry of all kinds. Easterbrook's comment is false and ugly, and we do not wish in any way to make excuses for it. And neither does he, which is why he apologized for it, and made no extenuations for it. He candidly wrote on this Web site last Friday that "[w]hat I wrote here was simply wrong, and for being wrong, I apologize." We associate ourselves with Easterbrook's contrition. We, too, failed our readers. This is not the time or the place to reflect on the new and uncharted editorial requirements of blogs and the other instantaneous publications and postings on the Internet. However fast the medium or however slow, on paper and online, the editors of The New Republic are responsible for the "content" that we put before the public; and in this instance we were delinquent in our responsibilities. But, while we understand the outrage that Easterbrook's comment has caused, we are concerned also about the brutality of some of the criticism. There is another, important side to this story. We have known Easterbrook for many years, and we wish to say without doubt or hesitation that he is not an anti-Semite. Indeed, he is a person of high integrity. He has written prolifically and thoughtfully and with great erudition on many subjects, including science, the environment, politics, and religion; and the moral sensibility that appears in his writings is that of tolerance and open-mindedness. The many editors and writers who have worked with him over the decades of his career--at Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Monthly, to name but a few--can all attest not only to his talent, but to his character. A good individual said a bad thing. Sometimes this happens. (Sometimes a bad individual says a good thing.) When it happens, he must credibly express his regret, and his understanding of how he erred. This Easterbrook has done. We have seen too many reputations unjustly ruined by media inquisitions and the vituperative politics of ethnic insult in America. We hope that the firmness with which Easterbrook's awful remark has been judged will be attended by fairness in the consideration of his character and his career. What he wrote last week is the terrible exception, not the terrible rule. These accusations have, of course, been enormously upsetting to The New Republic's staff, which has spent a generation writing about Jews, Israel, and the elimination of prejudice. On these issues we stand by our record. (The spectacle of this magazine defending itself against the charge of anti-Semitism would be funny if it were not so sad.) And we have many times in our pages insisted upon the moral importance of culture, and worried about the deleterious consequences of the romanticization of violence in American popular culture. We do not believe that our arguments and our anxieties have been vitiated by this incident. But we know that reputations are, by their nature, fragile things. So, as we apologize to you today, we also rededicate ourselves to keeping the faith of our readers in our old and proven commitment to decency in American life, and in the critical discussion of it. the Editors _
Limbaugh deserved to be fired. Easterbrook deserved to be fired. ESPN is "hipper" for having purged these individuals from their network. Simmons, Olberman, Eisen, and Mane have never crossed the line the way those two did. Removing Easterbrook from their history is a bit excessive, but someone obviously took those remarks personally. Its hard not to when you are singled out by name within an ignorant rant. Phrases like "it's all show" and "the veil has dropped", I associate more with Limbaugh than I ever would ESPN.
This is absurd. My feelings: 1. There was no categorical condemnation of Jewish people. 2. There was no categorical condemnation of the Jewish faith or tenets of that faith. 3. His position, simply, that a person who professes a creed or is part of a group that has been subjected to terrible violence in recent history should be sensitive to enabling violence-filled phenomena are being perverse. Is that really all that bigoted? Or even controversial There was absolutely no bigoted content in the statement. If he presented the fact-pattern in a way that is distasteful to you, perhaps you're simply being reactionary.
Did he actually watch Kill Bill? The movie didn't exactly glorify the killing of helpless people. Hell, most of the people who were killed in the movie were all bad guys who were armed with weapons. Some were subsequently disarmed. . . get it!
Exactly. I can't think of one person in that movie that was killed (shown) that didn't deserve it...as far as bad movie characters go.
The fact that he even associated Judaism and greed is bad enough, but to then compare a bunch of (un)innocent characters dying in a cartoonish movie to genocide is outrageous. What's absurd to me, is your take on this. Apparently, not too many people agree with your desensitized reaction to it. Fact pattern, what a freakin' joke!
What I don't get is what he was exactly going for, I think what he was trying to say was that any religious person who truly professed to be religious was hyporcritical for profiting off of violence in the way that Kill Bill was. Since the heads of Disney etc are jewish, I guess that's the way it came out. Stupid of him not to think that it would come out as bad as it did; yet another example that people are more likely to blog/email stuff that they would normally never put in printed form or say. Too bad, I liked TMQ, though I thought that he dumbed it down a bit for ESPn and that it had lost a bit of its pop recently. I hope it comes back somewhere.
I've been damned critical of the rabid anti-semitism of most Muslims in the world (as voiced by the highly educated PM of a supposedly "moderate" state of Malaysia) and I think ESPN was spot on for firing this guy. What he said linking Jews with greed is a time-honored tenet of the "Jews control everything" crowd like Al Sharpton, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and others and it has no place at ESPN. I just wonder if the Malaysian PM is going to use this firing as more proof that the Jews do run the world!
