Bryan;

There are two significant differences:

1. Limbaugh made his comments on ESPN and was fired from ESPN. Easterbrook made his comments for Slate and was fired from ESPN.
2. Easterbrook was “erased” from ESPN, not just fired. It’s one thing to can him and another to hack the search engine eliminate all traces of him.

Whether those are enough to matter, I’m not sure.

Agree with those two points and would add

Easterbrook mob seemed to form up on blogs before it spread to other outlets. Rush-bashing started in the newspapers.

The McNabb story was quickly overtaken by the painkiller story.

Perhaps a touch of schadenfreude - Rush has it made, he will never want financially. Easterbrook is much more like us - still struggling daily to make ends meet.

How about this for a bit of contrarian posturing: Easterbrook admitted his error and his apology was sincere and his remorse for what happened was palpable and believable. Rush would NEVER admit that what he did was in error or was even a forgivable careless slip of the moment; and Rush’s effort at an apology (if you can even call it one) was pro-forma, not seeming at all sincere, and he certainly exhibited not one shred of believable remorse. For the most part, we are a forgiving people in this country when the “sinner” admits weakness and error and show some remorse and repentance. I think that might be partly why, Bryan, you have come to Easterbrook’s defense moreso than Rush’s. And I think that’s a good quality in you.

1. This wasn’t Limbaugh’s day job. There would be a lot more outrage if Limbaugh’s radio syndicator had dropped him, or if a station group had done so. A big chunk of Easterbrook’s salary probably came from ESPN TMQ. Emotionally, that counts in our evaluations—Limbaugh’s martyrdom factor was low, Easterbrooks high.

2. Rush said his bit on ESPN, ESPN fired him. Fair enough. Easterbrook said his bit in TNR, ESPN fired him. I think the fracas would be less if TNR had fired Easterbrook and ESPN hadn’t.

I’ve become sick and tired of ESPN’s PC antics. They fire Rush for offending a coke addict like Micheal Irvin, then dump Easterbrook for something that wasn’t even said on their site. What’s next, they have their entire staff start marching with ANSWER during the next round of anti-America rallies?

They sicken me. I’ve already deleted them from my televisions channel memory.

Thing is, I think Rush had less to apologize for. In fact, he had nothing to apologize for. His remarks weren’t racist; just anti-press. They didn’t become a big deal until the Philly press, which until recently lionized McNabb, got ahold of it and them into a big deal. Anyway, whatever, blah blah blah, no need to get into all that again I suppose.