This is wild: do a search at Google for Tuesday Morning Quarterback and my post from last year is in the top 10 results. Furthermore, as a result of the controversy swirling over Easterbrook’s firing from ESPN, there’s now an active thread in the comments about what happened. (Check out the haiku homage!)
My views (for what it’s worth): I disagree with Ed Cone — I loved Easterbrook’s informed football commentary peppered with self-deprecating humor. Easterbrook’s comments last week were particularly unfortunate, and regardless of whether you’re willing to cut him some slack, he said what he said. (For a good write-up on the basics, see Ernie’s post earlier today.)
Disney has every right to fire him — this isn’t a First Amendment issue, it’s an employment issue. Disney owns ABC, which owns ESPN. And if the higher-ups at Disney are unhappy wiht what he said, they can certainly let it be known that they don’t want their name on his paycheck.
Is that right? I don’t know that the question much matters. It isn’t how I’d handle it — but I’m not Michael Eisner. (Thank God for small favors.) Easterbrook will land on his feet, and hopefully he’ll have learned only that you should read what you write before you hit “post”.
May we return quickly to cheesecake, links-that-shall-not-be-linked, diatribes against the blitz, and obscure college scores of the week.
Eisner isn't the only one. He wouldn't have fired Gregg, had it not been for the outrage of a very vocal minority amongst Jews. For the record, I personally don't believe that Jews should be more "sensitive" to violence than anyone else, but I don't believe that Easterbrook’s remarks are anywhere near anti-semitic, either.
ReplyDeleteMost Jews, and that includes me, and close friends and family, are more taken aback at the obvious anti-muslim statements by a certain General, and are questioning why Easterbrook had to go for suggesting someone should be more sensitive to violence, while Boykin still runs a military campaign.
Also for the record, I loved Kill Bill. I also have a problem with people who are not sensitive to violence. People. Period. Singling out one group, just because some Hollywood head-honchos are members by virtue of birth (neither one is particularly religious, as witnessed by Saturday afternoon parties, and eating habits), is ... well ... maybe not the way to go. But that's not a firing offense in my book...
Rick, I liked your post about Easterbrook, and in fact I posted a comment on your haiku blog entry a couple of days ago. In the URL section of the comments page, I linked to my article about Easterbrook's firing, posted in my blog on a buddy's site. Give it a look if you want, and anyone else. That being said, I think that some of the commenters are right: if ESPN is going to become a PC network and site, why keep showing "Playmakers", or for that matter, why keep allowing Arman Katayan (or however you spell his name) to keep reporting after his constant racially sensitive comments? Seems like there is some typical liberal hypocrites running Disney.
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