The New Republic has an apology of sorts now too. I guess it sums it up the best -- sorry for the way the point was made, but judged in context of the writer's career it's obviously the exception and not the rule. Wonder if they will keep the "Easterblogg." Or if Easterbrook will want to. It wasn't that good, but it would suck for it to end this way.

I like the New Republic for the most part. Last month I subscribed to it again. A couple years ago I had a subscription. It has the reputation for being a liberal magazine, though when reading it I can't always tell if that's true. And now there aren't too many places where "liberal" people talk about stuff and aren't blithering idiots on Iraq or whatever.

Apparently there is a big online petition for Slate to re-pick up TMQ. That would be cool. It was better there than on ESPN.com anyway. It will be nice if there is a TMQ published this week somewhere. We'll see tomorrow.

UPDATE: Here's some particularly insightful comments on this whole deal. Sorry, but I'm freakin' ticked off about this, much more than I am bummed about the Browns' crappy loss yesterday.

Kausfiles on Slate, former home of TMQ...

Glenn Reynolds on MSNBC...

Andrew Sullivan

A petition protesting the firing.

And at this point there's a ton more out there...

Again, maybe Easterbrook's comments were unwise, even indefensible. But consider the writer and his collective work and the furor over them is absurd. And setting aside Easterbrook himself, the resulting firing is a foul against our society. Not to mention TMQ is awesome and, as football fans, we'll be missing out on that.

I wonder what will come of this when tomorrow thousands of loyal TMQ fans can't find the weekly installment. Nothing, maybe. But maybe not. It feels like we're witnessing the crumbling of the ESPN backbone and the emergence of a paranoia of sorts by Disney.

I'd like to see Keith Olbermann interview Easterbrook. As far as I know MSNBC is not under the thumb of Disney, but it's kind of hard to keep straight these days.