Profiles In Dumb

The Lemur chooses for its SportsNation poll this fine spring day the question of whether or not the Eagles were right to run a part-time worker who called the team "retards" for their failure to retain Brian Dawkins. Muddying the works is the fact that the worker in question is handicapped.

A few quick points on this...

1) Why does the team care about what anyone, with the possible exception of its on-field and high office personnel, put on a freaking Facebook page? It's the online equivalent of putting a post-it note on your fridge, and in terms of actual damage to the franchise, about as destructive.

Petty tyranny is never the right PR move, especially in an off-season that uncharitable observers might call, well, penny-pinching. If the Eagles really want to spend their time cybersnooping around their part-time help's Web pages, maybe they really need to let some front-office personnel go, for lack of anything better to do with their days.

2) Having said that... why should the team treat this disgruntled worker any differently than an able-bodied worker? On this, at least, the team is on the side of the angels: they are equal opportunity heartless. If you or I were to rag on our employer on a public site, there's a reasonable chance that this would have resolved in the exact same way, only without a day-long PR circus.

3) Doesn't anyone ever realize the value of anonymity? Had this guy simply given himself a pseudonym, he'd still have his gig. And this is why, frankly, I keep the blog anonymous, because you don't want that momentary lapse of taste, judgment or sense to bite you in the hindquarters.

4) Independent of whether this was a jerk move by the organization, didn't the employee in question realize that, well, he had a job that any number of people would have given up their eyeteeth for? One that, you know, requires a small measure of tact?

The voting has, not surprisingly, not gone well for the corporate behemoth on this one: 4 to 1 against on the Lemur's poll as I write this. One wonders how much this has to do with the actual move by the team, as opposed to just the opportunity for Giants, Cowboy and Redskin Fan to dogpile on the PR dummy. Once again, my NFC East friends, enjoy winning March.

5) And as a final aside, to any Eagle Fan that wants to keep liking the Lemur despite its consistent Bahston Bias (and, um, you might also want to note that you, well, *hate* most of those teams), well, there it is, front page, with a poll. They could have ignored it; they didn't.

One might even notice, well, a pattern of such things. (Quick, get Donovan McNabb on the line! Does the team's callous treatment of this guy make you more or less interested in signing a contract extension? Is it true that you are behind the team's failure to resign Dawkins, or for that matter, Tra Thomas and Correll Buckhalter? And is there any way for us to drum up Terrell Owens again?)