Like the word “inappropriate,” which has been applied to certain tweets last week by Jemele Hill, the ESPN commentator, one of which described President Donald Trump as a white supremacist.
Soon afterward, ESPN rebuked Hill, saying she crossed a line, and she in turn made a statement saying she regretted painting her employer in a bad light.
Since then, the episode has only continued to draw heat. Trump tweeted about it, disparaging ESPN; his spokeswoman called what Hill said a “fireable offense”; ESPN’s public editor weighed in to say that he essentially agreed with ESPN’s reprimand; and everybody and his brother have taken to social media to agree or (mostly, vehemently) disagree with that.