Jack:

You are a first-rate media critic. But I think it is time to deal with your “empathy problem.”

I know that you reject kid-gloves sentimentality. Fair enough. But I would love to hear from other readers who admire you whether they are at all troubled by the timing of your takes on the passing of David Habersham and Tim Russert.

This does not have to do with substance of your arguments. I actually have no reason not to believe the fairly brutal personal description of Halberstam that you wrote before his funeral. And while it seems that I admired Tim Russert more than you did, I can’t say that your take on the hours and hours of mourning is that far off the mark. My guess is that Russert himself would be cringing by now.

But as I asked you when you wrote the Halberstam post-mortem, let me ask you again: Do you leave no room for even a brief interregnum, perhaps until burial, during which friends and family can go about the business of grief before Shafer speaks what he thinks is the truth?

Can you ever imagine yourself saying (not in my precise, clumsy words) something like:

“Now that Schickelgruber’s family has had a chance to take a deep breath and honor the memory of someone they loved and respected, it is time to add some balance to an embarrassingly uncritical avalanche of laudatory tributes. In fact, in addition to being a thoroughly mediocre reporter, Adolph was a participant in several astoundingly inept ethical lapses….”

Are you completely unconcerned that your pre-burial slams might be hurtful? Is there no way you would consider a brief time out solely out of respect for the feelings of friends and family?

In fact, let me put the question this way: Do you operate under the assumption that a death is a death, and that your need to immediately speak what you believe to be the truth is the same whether Jeffrey Dahmer has been killed in prison or Tim Russert has died of a heart attack?

Hey, if you completely reject the concept of a grief/grace period, so be it. But those of us who enjoy reading you will have to decide just how much we can live with someone for whom such a time out, however brief, is simply dismissed as hokum.

How about an “in the ground” rule in which all would be fair in love, war, and media criticism after the funeral?

Esteban