Proving once again that the media practices a “rules for thee, not for me” approach to pretty much everything, a Bloomberg reporter apparently got an incoming senior aide at the Department of Labor fired over a Facebook post.

Again, why were they suprised when “mutually assured destruction” became the rule of the day when this kind of stuff is a bragging point for journalists?

Bloomberg reporter Ben Penn had a total “gotcha!” post. He went digging through incoming Department of Labor senior aide Leif Olson’s Facebook page to find some dirt, any dirt. What he came up with, he wrote up in an article, claiming anti-Semitism.

SCOOP: Trump Labor Department's new sr adviser Leif Olson posted on Facebook that Jewish media "protect their own." In response to my request for comment on Olson's anti-Semitic post, @USDOL says they've accepted his resignation. https://t.co/68kDvaFn0h

— Ben Penn (@benjaminpenn) September 3, 2019

Olson was apparently on the job for 18 days before Penn, with a larger media platform than he has brains, decided to go sifting through his Facebook profile for funsies and a hit job. Why does the media have a credibility problem? It’s a mystery, Charlie Brown.

The worst part of this is that it seems to be universally agreed that Olson was mocking Paul Nehlen, who is the anti-Semite crazy person who made a media profile for himself trying to primary former Speaker Paul Ryan. Who says so? Other media figures like Jonathan Chait, who pointed out that the sarcasm in Olson’s post is pretty obvious – and that Penn also edited a couple of comments out to make the context less obvious.

In the post that got him fired, Olson was mocking Nehlen and the logic of his supporters: pic.twitter.com/IeBvkcvAJX

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 3, 2019

And the media wonders why Donald Trump’s message resonates with the average American.

That isn’t stopping Penn from defending his social media trawling. After all, if Olson wasn’t guilty, why did he quit? Huh? HUH? (Never mind that Steve King has no committee assignments while Ilhan Omar sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.)

To Leif Olson's friends & others who take issue with this reporting,
I sent a screenshot of a public FB post to DOL, seeking comment. 4 hours later I received this response: “Today, the Department of Labor accepted the resignation of Leif Olson effective immediately.” https://t.co/PZbIScDHqe

— Ben Penn (@benjaminpenn) September 3, 2019

Olson was literally a cog in the Department of Labor’s wheel. They could afford to lose him. It certainly doesn’t affect the DOL to lose a new senior aide as much as it does to have a man’s professional life targeted and ruined because a reporter is either stupid or malicious.

And those are really the only two options. If Ben Penn is too stupid to know what sarcasm is, then he must have nearly wet himself with excitement when he discovered this post. Thinking that he was delivering a blow for social justice and against racism, he ran to tattle to the DOL. Or Penn was deliberately malicious, edited the comments off the Facebook post to make sure the casual reader would buy the anti-Semitism claim, because he’s mean and vicious enough to smear someone he’s never met to make his social justice bones. He got a man fired (sure, he “offered his resignation,” sure), and then went to brag about it, thinking he was about to gain some serious journalisming cred. When other media outlets and journalists pointed out that he is an idiot, his only defense is “Well, he quit, didn’t he? HE MUST BE GUILTY.”

We’re all going to have to take a page from Governor Ralph Northam. Never admit to anything, give vague apologies, ignore the media until they get distracted by something else. It’s a pity that the DOL and Leif Olson couldn’t follow this formula long enough for Ben Penn to be exposed as a giant tool. Honestly, Leif Olson should be talking to a libel lawyer to see what his options are.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

Featured image via Pixabay, Pixabay license