Quote Of The Day: Sheepish Edition

“Siegel is brave, brilliant and wittier than [Jon] Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.”
Lee Siegel, commenting anonymously on his own blog

"Spezzatura" is a fine Italian word meaning "studied carelessness" -- in this case a little too careless, as The New Republic's senior editor Lee Siegel got himself suspended for responding viciously to negative commenters at his TNR blog via the "spezzatura" pseudonym.

Here's the TNR apology, an artful piece of brevity, and the lengthier NYT piece.

Note that TNR's apology uses the phrase "suspended from writing" as opposed to "fired." An act of spezzatura, no doubt.