There’s failing up and then there’s failing up after falsely accusing an ICE agent and disabled war veteran of being a Nazi.

Talia Lavin is the former New Yorker fact-checker who accused Justin Gaertner, a man who lost both legs in combat while serving in Afghanistan, of being a Nazi for having a tattoo she was too ignorant to identify properly.

She’ll now be (checks notes)…teaching journalism at NYU.

No, I didn’t just make that up. Here’s the backstory if you missed it.

Back in mid-2018, Lavin saw this tweet sent out by ICE.

Learn more about HERO Child-Rescue Corps, a program for wounded, injured & ill Special Ops Forces to receive training in high-tech computer forensics & law enforcement skills, to assist federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation https://t.co/g0DpFeb3fE pic.twitter.com/b7qTIbnuRR

— ICE (@ICEgov) May 25, 2018

The purpose of this was to celebrate disabled veterans like Gaertner (who’s pictured) who are now doing valuable work with ICE, such as helping fight against sexual exploitation of children on the internet.

For some reason, the fact that the tweet is clearly celebrating people worthy of our respect (disabled vets), doing jobs worthy of our praise (stopping exploitation of kids), didn’t register with Lavin. No, instead she ran to accuse him of being a white supremacist because there’s a cross tattooed onto his elbow.

ICE quickly sent out a response to Lavin’s smear.

Justin Gaertner is a combat wounded U.S. Marine who continues to serve his country as an ICE computer forensics analyst, helping solve criminal cases & rescue abused children. The tattoo shown here is the symbol for his platoon while he fought in Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/BaOBxaAMHS

— ICE (@ICEgov) June 18, 2018

She’s since deleted the tweet, which caused a firestorm within the SJW community and led to Gaertner being on the receiving end of a brutally unfair smear campaign.

Lavin made it clear she wasn’t actually sorry though.

“I think conservative media sunk their teeth into the story because it was everything they hate,” Lavin said, when asked why she thinks she was specifically targeted even though the rumor didn’t originate with her.

Conservatives pounce!

In reality, she was not “targeted.” She just happened to be the only Twitter blue checkmark dumb enough to push the story so she was the most high profile. That’s typically who ends up getting the most attention. She’s welcome to become unverified if she doesn’t want her tweets amplified and noticed.

After ICE responded by correcting the record, she cried victim again.

This has been a wild and difficult week.
I owe ICE agent Justin Gaertner a sincere apology for spreading an rumor about his tattoo.
However, I do not think it is acceptable for a federal agency to target a private citizen for a good faith, hastily rectified error.

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) June 21, 2018

Once Lavin left the New Yorker, she moved on to Media Matters, an unsurprising move for someone who is obviously a raging leftist.

Well, it’s a new day for Lavin. She’s been hired to teach a course on “Reporting on the Far Right” at NYU’s journalism school. Because if anyone knows how to report on the far right properly and honestly, it’s a woman who falsely accused a disabled veteran of being a Nazi.

Lavin’s undergraduate course “Reporting on the Far Right” will kick off in the fall semester of 2019 at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. In its official faculty bio, the university billed Lavin as an expert in “far-right extremism and social justice.”

At least one current NYU journalism student questioned the decision to hire Lavin. “I sympathize with Lavin’s politics, but I don’t know why someone who had to quit their journalism job for falsely implying someone is a Nazi should be teaching at NYU,” said the student, who requested anonymity for fear of academic reprisal. “I know there are plenty of reporters out there in need of work who haven’t made a mistake like that.”

If anyone is wondering why the media have no credibility, it’s because people like Talia Lavin are elevated despite their blatant failures, purposeful or not. Brian Williams can tell multiple lies about his past and still end up with a prime time show on MSNBC. CNN’s hosts can get caught repeating lie after lie about Russian collusion and the beat goes on. Now, you can falsely accuse a war veteran of being a white supremacist and end up teaching journalism at a prestigious university.

On what planet is this woman qualified to teach anything at NYU? Much less on a topic she has a history of so horribly screwing up? It must be really nice to be a liberal.

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