On Wednesday, I wrote about a particularly nasty column written by liberal Massachusetts-based freelance writer Luke O’Neil which appeared in the Boston Globe earlier that day.

Here’s what the first paragraph stated (bolded emphasis added)

One of the biggest regrets of my life is not pissing in Bill Kristol’s salmon. I was waiting on the disgraced neoconservative pundit and chief Iraq War cheerleader about 10 years ago at a restaurant in Cambridge and to my eternal dismay, some combination of professionalism and pusillanimity prevented me from appropriately seasoning his entree. A ramekin of blood on the side might have been the better option, come to think of it. He always did seem really thirsty for the stuff.

At the end of the piece, O’Neil urged wait staffs across America to do to former DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen what he had failed to do to Kristol all those years ago:

As for the waiters out there, I’m not saying you should tamper with anyone’s food, as that could get you into trouble. You might lose your serving job. But you’d be serving America. And you won’t have any regrets years later.

I screencapped that section, because I figured if the outcry was strong enough to it that the column would eventually get altered or pulled. After all, this was not him merely urging verbal harassment of a public official – O’Neil was encouraging people to commit a crime.

As it turns, out the paper did alter the column, deleting all references to peeing and bleeding on anyone’s food. Ultimately they ended up deleting it altogether (the link no longer works).

The Washington Post did a write-up today on what happened and the aftermath. They noted that O’Neil did not regret a single word and that some other Globe writers shared the piece and had no issue with it:

“I do not apologize for it personally whatsoever,” he said.

On social media, a number of people backed O’Neil’s piece, including some other journalists at the Globe.

Shirley Leung, the newspaper’s interim editorial page editor, shared the article to Twitter on Wednesday.

“I have no idea how this op-ed got past our editors…” tweeted Globe film critic Ty Burr, “but honestly, the vein-popping apoplexy on the part of the commentariat is a beautiful thing to see.”

Burr even tweeted his endorsement of the idea of peeing and bleeding on people’s food in a later tweet, provided the circumstances were right:

When I start putting children in cages, you have permission to take a whiz in my cornflakes. But not before. Points for false equivalency, though.

— Ty Burr (@tyburr) April 11, 2019

The WaPo also reported that some liberal writers were furious over the move, including Think Progress alum Judd Legum, who blamed the Globe‘s decision to pull the piece on …. Fox News:

6. This is pathetic by the Boston Globe which is supposed to be a real paper and deeply unfair to Luke, who just submitted his opinion for the Boston Globe's consideration. For the Globe to publish and then throw Luke under the bus because Fox didn't like it is wrong.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) April 12, 2019

Media Matters editor at-large Parker Malloy was also threw a tantrum:

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1116502069479915520

Defending incitement to commit criminal acts on your political opposition to own the cons. Gotta love it.

O’Neil said he would never write for the Globe again. He’s also written columns for the Post, but neither paper has indicated whether or not they’d publish anything else from him in the future.

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—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–