Unsportsmanlike Conduct

The Post had to review Kornheiser's first appearance on "Monday Night Football" -- or it would have been ducking the question of whether Kornheiser was any good at it. A longtime, well-known staffer can't just start appearing on an important national show and not be written about. Kornheiser knew that. The review could have been done in Sports, but it made more sense to have it done by Style.

Kornheiser wears a lot of hats. He's Tony Kornheiser Inc., Post columnist, book author, public speaker, radio commentator, television personality. But the truth is that he's not really under anyone's control but his own.

Kornheiser said he knows he needs a thicker skin, "like Wilbon's. I feel terrible about the whole thing. A lot of people said I was good. This was by far the worst and it hurt most of all because it was in the paper I've worked at for 27 years. If it had been somewhere else, I would have been mad. But it happened in my own newspaper and I was hurt." He said he "never for a second" questioned that Farhi had the right to critique his debut. Kornheiser said that his radio remarks were "meant to be deliberately over the top to be entertaining. In print it looks a lot worse than it sounded on radio because you don't hear the inflection."

Farhi was "amused" by Kornheiser's comments and said he is not offended: "Bashing people has been Tony's stock in trade for 30 years. So he gets a taste of his own medicine and he explodes. It's ironic." Executive Editor Len Downie said, "Just as Paul Farhi had the prerogative to review Tony's performance, Tony has the freedom as an opinion columnist and a television personality and commentator to express his own views."

Farhi's advice to Kornheiser was perfect: "Tony, grow up."

And if he can't, he needs to go stand in the corner and calm himself.

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or atombudsman@washpost.com.