If it sounds like anti- Semitism, maybe it is

These days, that is about as clear an example of objective anti-Semitism as one is likely to encounter in polite rhetorical society. Over the next 48 hours, the Web's equivalent of the roof fell in on Easterbrook. Simon -- who shared an Oscar nomination for his adaptation of Isaac Singer's "Enemies, a Love Story" -- fiercely denounced the remarks and, shortly, had posted more than 100 responses, mostly from readers from within the film industry.

Disney and Miramax issued a statement saying, "It is sad that these terrible stereotypes persist and that these comments are receiving a wider platform."

Easterbrook's friend and New Republic colleague, Leon Wieseltier -- the magazine's longtime literary editor -- agreed that "insofar as Gregg's comments impute Jewish motives for everything that Jews do, insofar as they suggest that everything any Jew does is intrinsically a Jewish thing, they are objectively anti-Semitic. But Gregg Easterbrook is not an anti-Semite and the suggestion that the New Republic is in any way receptive to anti-Semitism is the most ludicrous thing I've heard since the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gregg typed his way into a wildly offensive formulation, into classic anti-Semitic code."

Part of that, said Wieseltier, can be attributed "to the hubris of this whole blogging enterprise. There is no such thing as instant thought, which is why reflection and editing are part of serious writing and thinking, as Gregg has now discovered."

Simon was less charitable. "You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to believe that Web logs are to some extent a function of the id," he wrote in an e-mail. "They come out so fast and so unedited they often express our feelings more accurately and even deeply than more carefully wrought writing. This is their blessing and their curse."

Friday, Easterbrook said that "as the reaction to my piece came in, I thought that I might react with a ringing defense of free speech and a defense of my ideas about film violence, which I stand by. But after further thought, I realized that there are two kinds of offense that writers can give to readers: One is deliberate, because you want to force them to think about a difficult or unpopular idea. You might call that 'positive offense.' Then there's 'negative offense,' where you use the wrong words and prevent readers from understanding what you're trying to say. What I'm mainly guilty of is creating that negative offense.... Part of my failing conceptually was not realizing that words having to do with Jewish identity have a triggering effect based on thousands of years of history. There is no counterpart in the Christian context."