Online critics erupted after Bret Stephens included a not-so-subtle — and highly dubious — “bedbugs” quote in his latest New York Times column, just days after deactivating his Twitter account for trying to bully and professionally intimidate a professor who jokingly called him a “bedbug” on Twitter.

Topped with a massive photo of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Stephens’ latest column, entitled “World War II and the Ingredients of Slaughter,” cited an alleged quote from Polish Nazi sympathizer watching Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto burn: “The bedbugs are on fire. The Germans are doing a great job.” Some quick online sleuthing, however, suggested that Stephens may have carelessly misinterpreted the line.

But it was the broader implication of Stephens’ argument that inflamed his online critics, who were aghast at its audacious framing and exceedingly self-defensive nature.

My jaw is on the floor pic.twitter.com/repnmcL2Ud

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) August 30, 2019

This article comparing his critics to Nazis was inevitable from Bret Stephens. Absurd. https://t.co/t4a7T4sNJB

— Mark Gottlieb (@MarkGottliebFOX) August 30, 2019

 

Bret Stephens’ skin is sub-atomic in thickness

— Brandon Finnigan (@B_M_Finnigan) August 31, 2019

Can’t wait for Bret Stephens’s next column: “People who laugh in my face are Stalin”

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) August 31, 2019

I didn’t think I could get more shocked by Bret Stephens misread and mishandling of this situation, but here we are. https://t.co/i5eUKEUhdr

— Emily M. Farris (@emayfarris) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens latest column just went up and as expected… pic.twitter.com/eEh9KIPAx5

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) August 31, 2019

Poor, powerless civility champion Bret Stephens: An obscure prof tweets a joke about the bedbugs in the NYT newsroom being a metaphor for him (which got no retweets) so he wrote a column for a paper with 3mln readers comparing the prof to the Nazi overseers of the Warsaw Ghetto. pic.twitter.com/yn8B2mgGDE

— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens is now equating being called a metaphorical ‘bedbug’ to Nazi Germany.

This guy is unbelievable!

— Harry Cherry (@TheHarryCherry) August 31, 2019

Shorter Bret Stephens: “Actually, when I tried to get that professor fired, what I was really doing was preventing WWIII. You’ll thank me later.” https://t.co/x7YgEYM3Cl

— Elizabeth Picciuto (@epicciuto) August 30, 2019

I’ve had Twitter kick the shit out of me. It sucks. But when you’re lucky enough to have a great media gig, you accept that taking incoming heat is part of the job. You don’t narc on critics. You don’t use your privileged perch to compare yourself to Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) August 31, 2019

Still don’t get why some publishers of great newspapers tolerate opinion sections with such lax standards that would never fly in their newsroom. Many wonderful opinion columnists out there! But the bad ones do a lot of entirely avoidable damage to their publication’s reputation.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens is fucking dull and I usually hate it when people post about him, but saying the holocaust 2 will be triggered by very mild mannered NY media people saying he is a bug is the first funny thing he has done. encouraged by his growth

— noah baumbach movie about jeffrey epstein (@ByYourLogic) August 30, 2019

In which Bret Stephens attempts to go a week without humiliating himself. https://t.co/z1J4IrCfxu pic.twitter.com/4SHpHtir7p

— Andrew Barker (@barkerrant) August 31, 2019

As some pointed out after a cursory Google Books search, Stephens use of the “bedbugs” quote as a reference to Jews is of dubious credibility.

I just followed Bret’s own link. What are we doing here? https://t.co/vUoxKZFYDI pic.twitter.com/iyd2UvNcqp

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 30, 2019

Bret Stephens apparently just googled “Jews as bedbugs,” didn’t even bother checking the source, and the fucking @nytimes published it and at no point throughout the entire process did anyone involved think “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

— jordan (@JordanUhl) August 31, 2019

How is Bret Stephens just allowed to publish whatever he wants all the time? It’s really unbelievable how irresponsible he is. https://t.co/CiTnb6K2US

— Ian Hest (@IanHest) August 31, 2019

Others called out the Times editors for abetting Stephens’ stubborn grudge-holding and not saving the columnist from himself.

Do opinions editors ever get to ask, “Uh… are you sure you want to do that?” Understanding that you want to give your writers latitude to expresss themselves, there’s no part of that Bret Stephens article that isn’t obviously and spectacularly ill-advised and embarrassing.

— Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) August 31, 2019

Shoutout to Bret Stephens’ editors who said “This is gold, Bret, would not change a word” and “No, no reason to do anything about the link” and are in a bar checking Twitter and laughing their asses off.

— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) August 31, 2019

A scrupulous editor would have told Bret Stephens, “No. Just no. Get over it, Bret.”

Instead they actually went full Goebbels with it.

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 31, 2019

You all know that your attacks on Bret Stephens are only seen as a positive by his editors, right?

It means he’s “provocative.”

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 31, 2019

I guess @nytopinion reasons that no matter what stupid thing Bret Stephens does, any attention is good attention? Is that where they’ve set the bar?

— Matt Goldberg (@MattGoldberg) August 31, 2019

A responsible editor would have asked Bret Stephens to respond to the actual arguments Dave Karpf made. Says a lot that that didn’t happen. https://t.co/6aeuYKZ3J7

— Aaron Huertas (@aaronhuertas) August 31, 2019

Bret Stephens’s politics are obviously bad but the crowning insult is really his mediocrity as a writer and thinker. It’s like the Times is playing a big joke on everyone

— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) August 30, 2019

But Stephens lashing out at his critics was not at all a surprise to some.

here’s at least five different people predicting the full arc of Bret Stephen’s latest column on August 27th pic.twitter.com/p4Yre5sCOe

— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) August 30, 2019

A responsible editor would have asked Bret Stephens to respond to the actual arguments Dave Karpf made. Says a lot that that didn’t happen. https://t.co/6aeuYKZ3J7

— Aaron Huertas (@aaronhuertas) August 31, 2019

And even the original target of Stephens’ ire, George Washington media studies professor Dave Karpf, weighed in, with a more sorrowful than sarcastic reaction.

WHY DOES HE WANT THIS ARGUMENT TO KEEP GOING?????#bretbug

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 30, 2019

Okay, look, I have two things to say right now.

(1) this just stopped being funny. The New York Times is the paper of record. The entire internet knows who Bret Stephens just subtweeted with his column. He should know better. He doesn’t. That’s not okay anymore.

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 30, 2019

(2) I’m attending the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association right now. I have an actual job that doesn’t leave me with endless time to pursue pointless online vendettas.

So I’m going to try to take the night off from this. I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 31, 2019

Screengrab via MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2zCs8Br