If I were Jeb I'd just be happy someone was still paying attention to me at all.
You have probably heard by now that a low-level member of the
New York Times' clerical staff had an opinion on Jeb Bush and tweeted it. Yeah,
he's screwed.
About that time the Times staffer, Phillip B. Richardson, tweeted: “F--- you Jeb Bush for telling poor people they need stronger families to not be poor. Poverty weakens families.”
This was, of course, a reaction to Jeb Bush saying that we wouldn't have as many poor people around here if they would just buck up and have "stronger families"; as is the usual Republican line, poverty is not a result of there being not enough jobs or not enough money, but a result of bad character on the part of poor people. If they would just buck up and stop having such bad moral values, well now they wouldn't be poor, would they?
Anyhoo, Phillip B. Richardson's reflexive reaction to hearing a politician spout a line of 100 percent rich guy horsepoop looks like it will be costing him dearly, because everybody knows news organizations are not supposed to have emotional reactions to high-profile candidates for the highest office in the land lying their asses off on the national stage. The Jeb Bush campaign quickly highlighted the quickly deleted tweet as evidence of the dastardly New York Times being mean to them. Whether this implies that the Bush campaign has someone on staff who goes through the Twitter bios of all the people who drop the f-bomb on Jeb! in order to see where they work and whether they can make hay of that, I don't know, but the New York Times was forced to take speedy action.
"This tweet was completely inappropriate. Philip Richardson is a news assistant on The Times's clerical staff, assigned to the photo desk. He is not a reporter or editor and is not involved in political coverage. Nevertheless, tweets like this are inappropriate for any Times newsroom staffer, and managers will take the necessary steps to deal with the situation," [a New York Times] spokesperson said.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with the unnamed spokesperson here. Telling presidential candidates who blame poor family values for poor people being poor to go fuck themselves is not a job for a low-level staffer on the paper's photo desk. Telling presidential candidates who blame poor family values for poor people being poor to go fuck themselves should be the job of the paper's reporters, editorial staff, and possibly a full-page ad spread on page A-5. Compartmentalization, people.