Although I do read Bret Stephens occasionally – generally when my rage quotient for the day hasn’t been fulfilled, and I have a few minutes to spare - he’s not exactly my favorite NY Times columnist.
Anyway, some of the news that’s been fit to print of late has been about the discovery of bedbugs in The Times newsroom.
When George Washington University associate professor David Karpf saw the news, he sent out a not especially funny but innocuous enough Tweet:
“The bedbugs are a metaphor,” Karpf wrote on Monday. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens."
The tweet got nine total likes and zero retweets, Karpf said. So the professor was surprised when an email from Stephens popped in a few hours later. (Source: Washington Post)
In the email, Stephens – in true Time columnist style – fulminated against Karpf for “setting a new standard” in suggesting that he, Stephens, is a bedbug, however metaphorically-speaking Karpf’s intent was.
Stephens also invited Karpf to his home to call him a bedbug to his face. (Gauntlet thrown!)
Maybe I’m missing something. Karpf hadn’t called Stephens a racist a fascist, a climate-denying a-hole – all things I’m sure he’s been called in the past. No, Karpf was just making a funny-not funny comment playing on the Times newsroom’s bedbug out.
So Karpf was a bit taken aback by the vehemence of Stephens’ response. And it wasn’t just the email from Stephens that surprised Karpf. Sure, it was surprising. After all, he hadn’t even @’d Stephens. And it’s not as if Karpf has the following of, say, Barack Obama.
But the real surprise for Karpf was that Stephens had copied the GWU provost on his email.This level of cage-rattling for a harmless throwaway tweet didn’t just surprise Karpf. Understandably it pissed him off. It seemed to him that Stephens, who sits at the top of the journalism world - the sacrosanct level where you don’t even need to do any journalism – was tattling on him to his boss. You’re at the pinnacle, someone paid to opine for The New York Times. You’re someone who regularly gets to blow it out his arse, and here you are, hoping to get Karpf reprimanded or fired or something. For calling you a bedbug. Well, I see Karpf and raise him: Bret Stephens is something he always rails about: a whiny little snowflake.
Anyway, Karpf posted the Stephens’ email, and Stephens being Stephens – someone with a reputation for going after snowflakes, universities that suppress (conservative) free speech, and political correctness – the Stephens email went viral. And not surprising, many Twitterers took on Stephens with glee.
Rather than backing down, Stephens doubled down, calling:
…Karpf’s bedbugs tweet “dehumanizing and totally unacceptable”.
Further, he claimed that his intent was not to get Karpf fired, or “in professional trouble.” No, it was prompted by his belief that:
…“managers should be aware of the way in which their people, their professors or journalists interact with the rest of the world.”
Sheesh. Maybe we should all write to Stephens’ manager.
I can see all this (sort of) if Karpf had written something scurrilous, made a flaming personal attack on Stephens or his family. But Karpf’s riffing on the Times bedbug problem to call Stephens a bedbug? Doesn’t seem like the sort of hill that someone would want to die on.
To me, it makes Stephens look like a big ol’ boo-boo baby. Thin-skilled. Irascible.
Surely he’s been called worse plenty of times.
But even when he’s not called worse, Stephens has apparently been known to lash out.
Earlier this year, he sent a patronizing and preachy email to a young Deadspin writer who had called Stephens “dumb”. Stephens’ email included this gem of a passage, in which he advised the young guy that, instead of calling Stephens “dumb”, he should have invited Stephens to engage in a spirited dialog about their differing views:
Instead, you performed the digital equivalent of sticking your penis out of your trousers. This is very sad, and embarrassing, because (for now) you have so little to show intellectually or professionally speaking.
“Sticking your penis out of your trousers”? How lofty can lofty get? Is this indicative of your intellectual and professional bestest?
And so it goes.
Here’s the thing about the written word.
In both these situations – Karpf/bedbug, Deadspin guy/stupid – Stephens pretty much had to know that it would be way too tempting for the recipient not to get the word out. After all, here’s a nationally known writer with a gold-plated platform, pushing back, in all his pomposity, on an unknown little guy. Who could resist that?
So Stephens’ intent was never to settle “matters” privately, was it?
I know that no one makes phone calls these days, but if Stephens wanted to make his point, have a “teaching moment” (blechhhh), why not just call these guys up? Tell Karpf why you’re so offended by the use of the word “bedbug.” Tell the Deadspin kid why you think he should avoid name calling (even though you sometimes can’t avoid it yourself, as in writing about Palestinian “blood lust”…)
No, you shouldn’t leave a voice mail. That’s another invitation to send something viral.
But if you wanted a genuine conversation with someone, why not give them a shout? Is Stephens too old to remember the phone company ads that asked us to “reach out and touch someone”?
No, Stephens settled for coming off as a carping boo-boo baby. Make that a carping bedbug boo-boo baby.
I guess the good news is that Stephens has now quit Twitter. If only he’d exit the editorial pages of The New York Times just as expeditiously.
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