The Boston Globe has pulled an opinion piece by a writer who regretted “not pissing” on neo-conservative Bill Kristol meal when he was a waiter.
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 entrée. 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.
The piece, headlined “Keep Kirstjen Nielsen unemployed and eating Grubhub over her kitchen sink,” was penned by writer Luke O’Neil. The Globe eventually altered the story and added a note on top. “A version of this column as originally published did not meet Globe standards and has been changed. The Globe regrets the previous tone of the piece,” the note read.
But now, the piece is gone altogether. The link, found here, takes readers to a page that says “page not found.”
O’Neil is furious with the move. “Absolute brain genius move by the Globe to edit my story three times then take it down altogether and put up a note saying I’m not on staff instead of perhaps standing by a long time contributor and siding with labor instead of bad faith critics who would hate them no matter what,” O’Neil said Thursday on Twitter, according to the Washington Post.
In his piece, O’Neil said he regrets not having micturated on the meal ordered by Kristol, the former founder and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, and goes on to bash outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, accusing her of being a “reluctant triggerman for Donald Trump’s inhumane policies of ethnic cleansing.” He called on restaurants to eject current and former administration officials — and implied that maybe waiters should “tamper” with their food (while saying he wasn’t advocating that).
“As for the waiters out there, I’m not saying you should tamper with anyone’s food, as that could get you into trouble,” O’Neil wrote. “You might lose your serving job. But you’d be serving America. And you won’t have any regrets years later.”
Daily Caller opinion writer Eddie Zipperer caught one of the edits before the story disappeared.
https://twitter.com/EddieZipperer/status/1116099352643219458
O’Neil also ripped the mainstream media for “scolding” protesters who have have harassed Trump administration officials like Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and Nielsen, as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
“Sadly, the scolding seems to have done its job,” O’Neil wrote. “It’s been a while since we’ve been treated to a soulless Trumpist going viral for going hungry, and the sacristy of the restaurant seems to have held.”
The Post got in touch with O’Neil, and he defended the piece.
“I really like the lead,” O’Neil told The Post in an interview late Thursday night. “I think it’s a really good lead. . . . It’s evocative.”
But he said the point of his column wasn’t to encourage people to actually do that.
“I wasn’t really advocating to piss in somebody’s food, that’s crazy,” said O’Neil, who had been writing weekly columns for the Globe. “But I do think these people should be made uncomfortable in public. I don’t think that’s a . . . radical idea.”
O’Neil said he wrote the article in his usual “tongue-in-cheek style” with the intention of arguing that people could “moderately inconvenience” the lives of those who “carry out policies of ethnic cleansing and family separation and stealing babies and putting babies in cages and losing children across the country.”
And O’Neil was clear about his future with the Globe. “They completely cut my throat on this,” he told The Post. “I will never write for them again.”
