Commenting on the news that “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn and two others were killed in a car crash at 3AM, Roger Ebert tweeted the following yesterday afternoon:
“Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.”
Some were angry with the judgement call.
Today, Ebert backed off and somewhat apologized:
I don’t know what happened in this case, and I was probably too quick to tweet. That was unseemly. I do know that nobody has any business driving on a public highway at 110 mph, as some estimated — or fast enough, anyway, to leave a highway and fly through 40 yards of trees before crashing. That is especially true if the driver has had three shots and three beers. Two people were killed. What if the car had crashed into another car?
Something called “Hollywoodland” on Breitbarts Big Hollywood site disapproved of this (my guess is because Ebert is a big liberal and Big Hollywood is a Conservative outfit) first setting it up with “Before knowing for sure if alcohol contributed to the awful car crash…” and then posting the tweet and elaboration, going on to say:
There’s a time and place for this discussion. No doubt about that. But before stepping onto your sanctimonius soapbox, it’s a good idea to know the facts.
Blah blah. Eberts original tweet may have jumped to a (very logical) conclusion at a not-s0-tactful time, but his followup is crushingly valid. We’re all allowed to publicly comment our opinions on public news items concerning public people and everyone else is allowed to say it’s wrong or in bad taste or whatever they think, but factually, it’s difficult to argue with Ebert on this one.
