Dana Jacobson, ESPN, and Jesus

Don't read this.

A couple weeks ago ESPN's hostess and commentator, Dana Jacobson, showed up drunk at a celebrity roast and continued to get drunker during the taping as she hit on a bottle of vodka she was carrying with her. Eventually she was booed off the dais and escorted from the premises, but not before she was heard to say "F__k Notre Dame" and "F__k Touchsown Jesus" and as reported by the website that first published a narration of the event "F__k Jesus". For a week there was a deafening silence from ESPN's headquarters in Bristol Conneticut. They had the only tape, and it was never going to see the light of day.

As reports of Jacobson's outburst began to circulate, ESPN announced Ms Jacobson had sent apologetic emails to Charlie Weis and Mike Golik, ND alumni who had been present at the roast, referring to her "inappropriate behavior" in the most general of terms. This week as the story gained wider circulation, ESPN announced that Ms Jacobson had been suspended for a week.

My interest in the story has less to do with my identification with the university than with my annoyance with the fact that a jewish person, a member of the media, representing a network at a public event can loudly and obscenely profane the name of our Lord - not just with impunity, but with the connivance of the network in the cover up.

Now here comes the politically incorrect part: for mentioning the fact that Ms Jacobson is jewish, I will probably be described as anti-semitic. Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe Ms Jacobson as anti-Christian? And, in light of the cover up, wouldn't it be legitimate to question whether the management of the network shares her bias?

But he answered and said unto them, ‘You see all of these things, do you not? Truly I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down’” (Matthew 24:1-2).

At the time of his betrayal and execution Jesus prophesised the destruction of the temple. Within a generation the temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was laid to waste and most Jewa were expelled, many having been sold into slavery by the Romans.

With the temple destroyed the dispersed jews lost their connection to the Torah (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) and became devotees of the Talmud, which is the writings of the very same scribes and pharisees whom Jesus had denounced for abandoning their devotion to God and promoting devotion to the law. The law having been handed down from Moses supposedly in an oral tradition over thousands of years, but just then being written down. Reportedly, the Talmudic writings as they were codified and expanded in the centuries following Christ's death were not kind to Jesus or his followers.

So I would hopefully suggest that this recent incident could provide an occasion for Ms Jacobson, the management of ESPN, and others who hold to the jewish tradition to soften their hearts, put their prejudices behind them, and grow in tolerance for the Christian community.