Gregg Easterbrook was roundly criticized for his Weblog entry that implied Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein had some special, magical obligation to not produce violent movies because they are Jewish - ethnically Jewish, that is. Easterbrook apologized, but Atrios, among others, said that he just didn't get it.

This started a period of piling on Easterbrook for some of his middle-right political views, and in the midst of all this, ESPN fired Easterbrook. Even though his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column had nothing to do with the Weblog entry in question, Disney owns ESPN, and Michael Eisner is CEO of Disney. Easterbrook was canned and all of his columns removed from the site, a "disappearing" uncalled for by the circumstances.

I've had mixed feelings about all this because I find Easterbrook's political writing somewhat naive and credulous. For example, environmental groups have pointed out that instead of drilling in ANWR and violating that pristine reserve, the US could gain just as much by raising fuel efficiency standards on SUVs by merely three miles per gallon. For some bizarre reason, Easterbrook wants to do both as some kind of "compromise" - ruining ANWR while simultaneously raising standards such that it wouldn't be necessary. If your definition of "compromise" is "give both sides their worst case scenario," this might make sense, but not in any other situation.

Lots of left-leaners, including Atrios, have all but urged ignoring Easterbrook, though several have also said that his firing from ESPN was just plain wrong. Even though Atrios is my favorite blogger, I can't agree. If we start boycotting Easterbrook's writing just because of his political opinions, it's not much different than the Baseball Hall of Fame "disinviting" Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon, or of conservatives calling for CBS to shelve The Reagans because it stars Barbra Streisand's husband. The appropriate answer is to read and support (financially or morally) Easterbrook's football writing, if you like it, but not his other writing if you don't. For example, I'm very unlikely to buy Easterbrook's upcoming book, The Progress Paradox, in which (according to early reviews) he argues that it doesn't matter if Wal-Mart forces employees to work extra hours without pay, because they still have it better than their grandparents did.

But I have always liked TMQ, I'm glad to see it back, and I'll read it. But eeeegad! Already, in the first return entry, Easterbrook has again blown a football call!

Enormous College Enormous Mistake of the Week: Okay, so Oklahoma outscored Texas A&M 77 points and outgained the Aggies by 585 yards. The game was so one-sided, the final should have read 77-00.

But the Sooners ran up the score. After the game Bob Stoops issued a transparently insincere claim not to have wanted to pile on, and Sooners faithful pointed out that, when near the Aggie goal line in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma basically knelt on the ball. But here's the giveaway. Leading 35-0 late in the second quarter, Oklahoma threw on seven of its final eight snaps of the first half. When you're ahead by 35 and still throwing on every down, what you are doing is running up the score. The football gods take a dim view of this sort of thing, and will exact vengeance. Unless they immediately engage in some act of humility, the Sooners can kiss the national championship goodbye.

The football gods also punish sportswriters for hubris. Every football coach has seen days when the opponent that comes out after halftime is vitally different than the one that went into the locker room. Can you imagine the insult to A&M it would be to take out the starters with two minutes left in the first half? Oklahoma did everything but take a knee in the second half and still scored 14 points it didn't want, including one defensive touchdown, probably because the defensive coaches just hadn't thought to tell the backs, "If you get the football, don't score with it." Easterbrook is the first sportswriter I have ever seen, in 25 years of paying attention, to accuse a team of running up the score in the first half.

If he wants to look for the football gods taking a dim view of this sort of thing and exacting vengeance, perhaps he should have considered this. Ahead of Baylor 38-10 at halftime, A&M still threw a 92-yard pass for a touchdown in the third quarter and a 42-yard pass for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Easterbrook complains about OU throwing passes in the first half, but A&M was throwing for touchdowns in the fourth quarter when they were ahead 59-10. The final score? A&M 73, Baylor 10. The same A&M players who were so pissed at how being on the losing end of that felt didn't seem to have much trouble being on the winning end of a similar rout.

As for "humility," Stoops and his team are playing by old school rules in that the only thing worse than a humiliating loss is taking a knee. You put in the backups, you put in the practice squad, you run predictable plays up the middle without trying for extra yards, but you do not embarrass your opponent by not even bothering to engage. A few years ago, I remember OU getting up to 69 points with a touchdown against a weak opponent. Stoops ordered the special teams to take a knee on the PAT attempt instead of kicking it, and I remember him being criticized for disrespecting the other team by refusing to even try for points. In the post-game conferences, Stoops has done everything he can to avoid saying "we laid down for A&M once we got far enough ahead." To many people, including me, saying that would be far more insulting than scoring points.

But if Easterbrook wants to gauge karma about trying to score points on a weaker team when you're far ahead, his example isn't OU on A&M. It's A&M on Baylor - and the football gods did exact their revenge against A&M. On national television. Sports writers sometimes complain that it's always the guy who hits back who gets the flag, and here Easterbrook has done the same thing, but against the football gods. Given TMQ's problems this year, you'd think he'd tread more cautiously in assigning their wrath.