Kornheiser Suspension at ESPN Is Ridiculous

Tony Kornheiser “is one of those guys whose ugly side is his only side,” writes Jack Shafer, so ESPN’s move to suspend him after some lecherous but fairly standard comments about colleague Hannah Storm rings false. In fact, punishing him “for being an oozing bag of pus and venom raises more questions about the network than it does about the employee.” If they were really peeved, they would fire him. “But they won't.”

“They won’t fire him,” Shafer concludes on Slate, “because they aren't actually upset.” He suspects ESPN has made the fuss because Kornheiser called Storm “a Holden Caulfield fantasy,” which is perhaps a reference to prostitution from Catcher in the Rye that surely “went over the heads of 99% of his listeners.” Shafer is no fan of Kornheiser, not by a long a shot, but instead of punishing him for being himself, ESPN execs “should be punishing themselves for running their network like a high-school locker room.” (More Tony Kornheiser suspended stories.)