An editor! An editor! My kingdom for an editor!
My computer meltdown meant I wasn't able to post in a timely fashion on the Gregg Easterbrook/anti-semitism dustup, and I'm not going to launch into a lengthy dissertation at this late date. Here's a short one instead.
Easterbrook has always struck me as a facile writer with some interesting ideas and a penchant for contrarianism even when it carries him into ridiculous waters (as with his ludicrous and contrafactual defenses of the Bush environmental record). But it seems pretty obvious to me that he is not an anti-semite. There's no way he could have maintained a long association with the New Republic, that bastion of the Israel lobby, if he were an actual hater of Jews.
He posted something stupid on his blog; he apologized; I'm not sure there'd be any more of a story here, except that he is plugged into the New Republic/Slate Axis of Kinsley, has friends in the media falling over themselves asserting his innocence of prejudice, and his ugly words resounded through the echo chamber of the Beltway intelligentsia like a particularly loud bodily eruption that no one could ignore. Should he have been fired from ESPN? I don't think so. (Read King Kaufman on this for more.)
It is clear that Easterbrook will now go down in the books as object lesson A on the subject of why journalists who are used to working with editors should think twice before giving up that safety net. Any editor with half a brain would have read Easterbrook's paragraph singling out the bosses of Disney and Miramax as Jews who "worship money," pulled the writer over and said, "Uh, you don't want to say this this way." Without the advantage of a second reader, post-first-think-later writers like Easterbrook will be free to hang themselves. Which is fine for many or most bloggers out there; indeed, the spectacle is part of the fun of this new media form. But those -- like Easterbrook -- whose livelihoods depend on their reputation as writers may sensibly retreat to the safety of editors.
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