Journalist Who Mocked Cancel Culture Gets Canceled – Opinion

Dave Weigel (a Washington Post reporter) has been in serious trouble over the past week for tweeting an amusing, mildly funny joke about women. The tweet in question quipped that “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out whether it’s polar or sexual.”

Are you finding this offensive? Sure, it’s offensive, but that’s usually what jokes are, and as Robby Soave points out, is it really any more offensive than the viral joke about men being unwilling to go to therapy?

What is the difference between the joke that got Weigel suspended from The Washington Post, “all girls are bisexual or bipolar,” and the extremely popular “men would literally do X instead of going to therapy” joke? All the women who shared the joke on Twitter should lose their jobs.

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) June 7, 2022

Still, as RedState’s Brad Slager chronicled, the outrage flowed from one Post reporter named Felicia Sonmez. Weigel was relentlessly pursued by her mob, who insisted that the Post get involved. Even though he deleted the retweet quickly and apologized, she kept targeting him for several days more.

Now, he’s been suspended by the Post. This is even more remarkable because Weigel was a man on the left who had mocked cancel culture in the past.

Shoot, chaser

(This is why I don’t feel bad for him) pic.twitter.com/jXwJ7RUnXo

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 7, 2022

Those new rules kind of stink don’t they? And there’s something poetic about someone who has promoted them being forced to play by them. I have nothing personal against Weigel, and as far as leftwingers go, he’s fairly mild. Yet, it’s probably necessary for the alligator to eat some of its handlers in order to get this stuff under control. Further, it’s necessary for conservatives to let it happen so some lessons can be learned.

Conservatives should normalize their stance and stop defending left-leaning journalists being forced to conform to their standards.

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 7, 2022

As I noted in my initial write-up on the situation, Weigel’s downfall is why you don’t bend the knee to the mob. It will never be enough, and no one is ever intersectional enough (well, almost no one) to escape the mob’s wrath. The tenets of woke-ism are so conflicting and overlapping that no matter how much penance you pay, you’ll always run afoul of some new rule. Weigel’s mistake was apologizing in the first place, not because there’s anything wrong with apologizing, but because there is a moral imperative not to feed into bad-faith actors seeking to destroy others.

Sonmez is not content with what she did to the head, and has already moved on to her next target. The Post’s other writer, who came in to defend Weigel, is soon to see how far management is prepared to go in order to please the extreme-left newsroom figures.

I find it difficult to comprehend why Washington Post didn’t do anything to address these tweets in which an employee mischaracterizes himself and charges a colleague with bullying and clout for objecting publicly to sexism.

Do you think this is who we are? https://t.co/GT95VUlSWr

— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) June 7, 2022

That’s right. A woman who bullied another person over an innocent joke eventually got him suspended. His career was put at risk. Now, she wants to apologize for the actions of another man. Even worse, she wants Jose A. Del Real disciplined just like Weigel.

Sonmez and others like him are consuming the power that cowardly-editors have given them. If this is the road the Post wants to go down, they are welcome to, but it’s going to eventually destroy them. It’s best to continue with their current activities.