In Defense of Bari Weiss -Not- Firing Peter Attia at CBS

(Mark Lennihan/Daniel Paik/New York State Sex Offender Registry/Gabriele Holtermann/AP photos)

Bari Weiss has made a lot of missteps in her first few months at the helm of CBS, but keeping Peter Attia—which she seems prepared to do—would not necessarily be one of them.

Let’s be clear, what Attia said to Jeffrey Epstein was disgusting. The comments were familiar, flattering and filthy, including language that normalized and joked with a guy known to be a serial sexual predator. There is no “but” that makes it acceptable.

Attia appears to understand that. In his public apology, he acknowledged that the messages reflected a “profound lapse in judgment,” said he was ashamed of having engaged with Epstein at all, and admitted that he failed to appreciate—or chose to ignore—the moral gravity of who Epstein was and what he had done.

“[I] regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me,” Attia wrote. “I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it.”

That apology does not excuse the conduct, but as we say in the legal world, it can potentially mitigate the sentence. And Bari Weiss seems ready to do just that.

Attia is not alleged to have participated in abuse, facilitated Epstein’s crimes, or harmed anyone. His wrongdoing consists of ugly speech. Is there an argument to be made for banishing him, particularly from a platform like CBS? Sure. But moral condemnation, need not be synonymous with permanent professional disqualification. Haven’t we learned lessons from the whole cancel culture overkill? Weiss built her entire business out of opposing those excesses. Wouldn’t it be strange, even professionally perilous, for her to abandon that principle now?

An unnamed PR pro missed all of that when offering the predictable criticism of Weiss to Status’s Natalie Korach.

“She is naive to all of this,” the PR person said, of Weiss. “The first email circulated on Saturday and it was immediately clear what needed to be done. You have to get ahead of these things.”

But that take completely ignores that Weiss was hired for this position because of her willingness to buck the pressure, not in spite of it.

It is also entirely reasonable to say that Attia’s reprehensible private communications do not automatically render him incapable of performing unrelated professional work—particularly medical analysis, public health discussion, or broadcast commentary. Our legal system recognizes this distinction constantly, as should serious institutions that believe in proportionality rather than just moral theater.

Some will say that CBS would be endorsing Epstein by allowing Attia to stay. But really, it would be making a narrower judgment: that Attia’s connection to Epstein was not as deep or troubling as some others, and that his professional role there is not predicated on moral authority or personal virtue, but on subject-matter competence. Some, like Larry Summers, have suffered enormous professional consequences for a deep and close relationship with Epstein. Donald Trump, on the other hand, remains President despite allegedly writing and saying objectionable things to Epstein. Prominent physicist Lawrence Krauss is still evidently in good standing in the scientific community despite some creepy email exchanges with the late pedophile. And former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak remains a highly-sought after expert on all things Israel even after penning a suggestive note for one of Epstein’s infamous birthday books. They have all suffered a professional price in reputation and/or esteem, but not banishment.

What Weiss is doing—and what critics seem determined to ignore—is modeling a standard that is different from, and arguably fairer than, what a mob immediately demands. It’s about the severity of the sentence not just the crime.

This sort of restraint can be challenging. If she decides to keep Attia, she will be condemned within and without CBS but it will also be a brave decision — precisely the sort of bravery, love it or hate it, that landed her in this position in the first place.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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