[.cnI redruM]

Easterbrook may give millions to The Red Cross and United Way, but his commentary veered into bigotry in a reflex and unconscious manner. His character completely aside, he said exactly what he said. His bigotry is engrained, reinforced and melded into his entire being by the company that he keeps on the elitist left. It's a part of the elite leftist's autonomic nervous system.

His fall from grace is notable and positive for two reasons.

1) Now that a liberal has actually suffered for espousing bigotry, we will begin having a rational discussion about the issue of bigotry and how it should be punished. When it was Trent Lott, and Rush Limbaugh, the media chorus was an uncritical "Off with their heads!!"

Now that one of the liberal, elitist media's own, an editor at The New Republic, got wailed on, the journalists may think twice before convening the lynch mob for future stupid and tasteless public remarks.

2) The left has had it's sordid underside revealed in all of it's hating putridity. Easterbrook could have called Eisner a bloated greed-bag, or a criminal exploiter of violence and near-pornography for filthy lucre. This would accurately encompass who Eisner is and hardly paint him a portrait he'd want hung at The Hirschorn.

Instead, when Easterbrook really wanted to load up and bring it with the ad hominem vituperation, he had to play the race card. He had to describe the aspect of Eisner's core that he truely found most loathesome. Instead of the greed, the corruption or the hideously tacky bling-bling, Easterbrook called him a hook-nose. That was the aspect of Eisner's being Easterbrook found most hateful. Easterbrook is a bigot, QED.

[OldFriend]

At his core, Easterbrook is an anti-semite.

[pogo101]

Easterbrook is a bigot, QED.

I haven't read the original Easterbrook piece. I read one PARTIAL defense of Easterbrook (and I stress it was only a partial defense, whose author still thought Easterbrook was right to apologize) indicating that Easterbrook had meant to criticize the executives for going against the tenets of their religion, just as one might criticize Ted Kennedy for going against the Catholic stance on abortion. But I'm ignorant of the underlying material, as I said.

[JohnGalt]

Easterbrook should have known better than to produce an ethnic slander against a group that does not tolerate such caricatures.

He should have just blamed drunk Irishmen like everyone else does.

Signed,
a drunk Irishman

[dts32041]

I thought Herr OsternderBach was actually admitting the liberal prejudices against the juden.

After all The two great socialist movements of Europe (19th and 20th century) have always hated the juden, but never admitted their hatred.

[laotzu]

"We hope that..Easterbrook's awful remark has been judged will be attended by fairness in the consideration of his character and his career."

Character doesn't matter. Especially that of a racist enciting others to join in his bigotry.

Unless, of course, your not a liberal.

[Torie]

I previously believed that Easterbrook was a good, fair, thoughtful, erudite and hightly talented man, and still do. He just slipped up. The idea that he harbors anti-Jew views is ludicrous. He was simply furious that a couple of Jews were asleep at the switch on their watch for perhaps pecuniary reasons, and thus failed to live up to the standards they should per the religiouos values to which they subscribe. Of course, there was no need to bring up religion, and he should not have done so, particularly since the comment while offering up little of substance or value, generated so much heat and hurt.

As Peggy Noonan once said, be good to your troop to the extent one can in conscience.

[beckett]

Your purple prose attack on Easterbrook is way over the top. Easterbrook was trying to make the point that Jews should be extra-sensitive to violence in film because they have suffered so much violence in their own history. His phrasing was a bit clumsy, but not outrageously so. As he said in his apology, years ago he sought out and found a Christian denomination to worship in that shared its facilities and ceremonies with a Jewish Temple, specifically for the purpose of growing closer to and learning more about the "elder brother" of Christianity -- Judaism. He is not an anti-Semite.

The real outrage here is that Michael Eisner at Disney fired Easterbrook in a heavy-handed overreaction to a little heat. The fact that he can reach down from the top of Disney and swat little Easterbrook at ESPN should give pause to all of us who are worried that the tight consolidation of media outlets in this country is choking off freedom of expression.

Another thing to be aware of with Easterbrook is that, although he is considered left-of-center (barely), he has done lots of heavy lifting for conservatives through his excellent and learned polemics against radical environmentalists. The guy is a highly competent science writer who has flayed the tree-huggers alive on numerous occasions.