TMQ no longer on ESPN.com!

Cafe Society
#1

As is my usual Tuesday morning ritual, I logged onto ESPN.com for my break and went to Page 2. TMQ is one of my favorite columinsts, and though I disagree with much of his politics, and some of his football stuff I love to read him.

Much to my dismay, the column wasn’t up. Well, sometimes the column is up a little late, so maybe that’s all it is.

No, there’s a note on the screen that says,

And that’s it! Nothing else! Has anyone seen anything on this, or does anyone know where I can get my TMQ fix? I can’t even get to the archives on ESPN. I think they pulled them off the site!

I e-mailed but haven’t yet received a response from them.

Help!

#2

He evidently made some anti-semitic remarks on his blog. See http://slate.msn.com/id/2090091/

It was, perhaps, an overreaction, but it was a stupid thing to say.

#3

I just found a link to another site that says he was pulled (read fired)
http://www.twistedfans.com (about halfway down the page)

[/quote]
I wrote a sorta scathing review of Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback and wondered why the hell ESPN was adding such crap to its Page 2.

Now, RiShawn Biddle’s The Usual Suspect reports (via Instapundit – who links to ridiculous GE supporters so don’t go there) that Easterbrook has been canned…
[/quote]

#4

The blog item was available about an hour ago. It’s not now. FWIW I (who liked his gridiron columns, appreciated his NASA critiques and think Kill Bill is a masterpiece) thought it was pretty damn dispiriting.

#5

I read the blog item a few days ago actually. I think the enitre thing was poorly written and hard to understand. I disagreed strongly with it, but didn’t really get the anti-semite view that others saw. Perhaps I’m dense, but I thought he was saying something more along the lines of - “This man professes to be Jewish, but will back a violence filled movie. Isn’t that against his beliefs.”

Again, I don’t really know - and if it was indeed a dig against Jewish people by saying they’ll do anything for money (the view others have taken), well, I’m disappointed and sad.

#6

is it true that TMQ will still be available on Slate.com?

#7

Here’s King Kaufman (from Salon)'s take on it:

http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2003/10/21/tuesday/index.html

No idea if you have to be premium or not.

#8

Since the ESPN archive has been completely emptied, there is the Slate archive as well. Anything with Sports Nuts is TMQ.

#9

It didn’t seem particularly anti-Semetic to me. Given our history, and particularly our history of the last several decades, I think we jews do indeed have a more significant obligation to combat violence and dehumanizing portrayals than others do – or at least, we can be expected to be more sensitve to such an obligation which is shared by all mankind. I don’t think Easterbrook is right that Eisner and Weinstein should not have released Kill Bill; I do think he is correct that they should have thought more seriously about it than it’s been reported they did – but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t actually think seriously about it, just that they didn’t call Variety to detail their hours of soul-searching.

There is nothing in the piece which suggests that jews will do anything for money; rather, the piece suggests that there are tons of people in Hollywood who will do anything for money, and that it is particularly egregious when 1) the “anything” is the glorification of violence, which “Kill Bill” indisputably was and 2) the people are jews, who should be particularly sensitive both the predations of violence and to how dehumanization of people in the media can lead to violence against actual people. I think the principle is not only defensible, it is correct.

–Cliffy

#10

To be clear: when i say “piece” I’m not referring to the article as a whole but only the one-paragraph excerpt therefrom which was quoted in the Slate article linked to above.

–Cliffy

#11

Howard Kurtz commented on this in the Washington Post. In it he links to the original piece and the apology. (Those links may not load - tnr.com is under a heavy load as everyone and their brother tries to see them. Just keep trying - they’re there, honest.)

#12

I really liked Easterbrook’s work but I really found one thing odd. Here is a man who probably describe himself as a contentious, practicing Christian. Yet he made a big deal of putting cheesecake into his column. Strange.

Having said that I can’t see his dismissal from ESPN.com as anything but a snit fit by the top brass. Sure he wrote something (unrelated to the ESPN website) that wasn’t thought out (by his own admission) and was quite possibly offensive (although certainly stupid). But to give him the axe instead of a warning, a suspension or make him offer an apology is heavy handed. And to obliterate all his archived works reeks of serious retribution. At least he should be glad he hasn’t found himself targeted for assignation (yet).

#13

or even assassination
:smack:

#14

The history of his writings show no tendency towards any bigotry at all. Judging by his past writings I would have to think that this was an unfortunate choice of words. His columns come across as arrogant at times but he wrote well about football. This differs in relation to the Rush Limbaugh incident due to the fact that Rush has a history of inflamatory remarks. I’m not aware of any past accusations against Easterbrook of racism or bigotry. I find it strange that in the days following Limbaughs remarks ESPN stood by him but Easterbrook was fired immediately. That is a bizarre double standard when you look at both these men. I don’t think his firing had really anything to do any anti semitism but simply because he slammed his boss. Someone like David Letterman can get away with that for years because of his power in his industry. Easterbrook doesn’t have that same pull so he doesn’t have that luxury to criticize his superiors.
I think his comments were pretty stupid and illogical but he didn’t deserve to lose his job.

#15

This needs to be in bold somewhere.

#16

Mr. Goofballz has been a memeber for almost a year and just made his first post? Wow!

#17

Arnold Schwarzenegger: “Gregg Easterbrook, you have been erased.”

#18

I’m glad he’s gone. His commentaries on violence and entertainment read like the rantings of the PTC or CAP Alert, and besides, what were they doing on ESPN.com in the first place? I also find it very hypocritical that he would rant and rave about violence and its alleged “harmful” effects (even though it has never been proven that there is a causal relationship between fictional and real violence), yet every week he has pictures of NFL cheerleaders in the column.

As for the football nuts and bolts of his writing, I have two complaints, one minor, one major.

First, the small one: his team nicknames. My god, is this guy on the 24 boards at TWoP? Fine, you want to be all clever and PC and write about the “Potomac Drainage Basin Indiginous Persons”. But does every damn team need a nickname that is many times a big stretch?

Now, the big one. Not long ago, he wrote a big rant about how NFL officials were not making goal-line calls correctly because the knee has to be in the end zone, not the ball. Well this naturally went against everything I knew about football, and a quick google search found the relevant NFL rule–the ball is to be spotted WHERE THE BALL IS when a player’s knee touches the ground, he steps out of bounds, or his forward progress is stopped.

Now, I emailed him the link and an explanation. So what does he do in the next column? He ignores the rule, and continues to insist that he’s right. Tommy Maddox was called for a safety in the Titans game, because “the ball came down out of the end zone but his knees were still in it”. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The ruling, which was articulated by the official on the field because the play was challenged, was that when Maddox’s knee came down, the ball was in the end zone, and he didn’t bring it out until after his knee touched.

Injecting a moral crusade into an inapropriate forum and ignoring contradictory facts? Put this guy on talk radio!

#19

If I remember this bit correctly he had the right interpretation of the rule.

I demand a cite :smiley:

If anyone wants to tell of ESPN.com go to their feedback page.

#20

Threadkiller: this is the link I emailed them.

http://www.nfl.com/fans/story/5764456

“If a runner is contacted by a defensive player and his knee hits the ground, the correct progress spot is the position of the ball at the time the knee touches the ground.”