Should MSNBC's Joy Reid Be Fired for Expressing an Unstylish Opinion?

No.

What’s that you say? You want more, to make it worth your time to click this? Okay…

Recently, The Atlantic hired writer Kevin Williamson away from National Review. Slightly more recently, The Atlantic fired Kevin Williamson after he’d written a grand total of one piece for the magazine. Williamson was targeted by a howling online mob for some things he’d said in the past about abortion, and Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg capitulated to that mob. Williamson has written about the experience at length here, but the short version is that it was a turf war. Liberals see media outlets like The Atlantic as their territory, and they saw Williamson as a trespasser. Their behavior is parochial, provincial, and bigoted. They’re behaving exactly like the sort of people they mistakenly believe they’ve risen above. It’s just another variation on that timeless American classic: “Not from around here, are ya?”

I mention all this to give a little context to what’s happening right now to MSNBC’s Joy Reid. Caleb Ecarma, Mediaite:

Mediaite has obtained a series of homophobic posts from Joy Ann Reid’s old blog that she denies were actually written by her.

In an exclusive statement to Mediaite, the MSNBC host claims these posts from The Reid Report — which include defending homophobia, gay jokes, and the outright mocking of gay people and homosexuality — were somehow put in by an “external party” that “manipulated material from my now-defunct blog.”

Here’s a sampling:

Thread – 1/x Joy Reid’s homophobic blog posts were far worse than 1st reported.

They also had nothing to do with Republican hypocrisy on gay marriage. Joy also opposed gay marriage at the time. She gleefully accused people of being gay and posted a number of questionable things. pic.twitter.com/ZloivXczTS

— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018

2/x Top 5 “totally not gay celebrities of the year”.

Using your media platform to out people you think is gay to get clicks has nothing to do with Republicans hypocrisy on gay marriage. pic.twitter.com/0B921itHkj

— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018

3/x Joy writes that @karlrove is known as Miss Piggy in Washington DC’s gay circles. Claims he is a leader of the gay Republican mafia.

Joy re-posted this “reidblog classics” at the end of the year for her readers’ enjoyment. pic.twitter.com/mFTvApK0VX

— Not a bot (@Jamie_Maz) April 18, 2018

There’s plenty more of the same at this link.

Reid apologized last December for similar homophobic opinions on her old blog, but now she claims this newly discovered “hate speech” is the work of a hacker.

Here’s the statement of security consultant Jonathan Nichols regarding the claims of blog-hacking by MSNBC’s Joy Reid. pic.twitter.com/wGAui8Mfa5

— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) April 25, 2018

“I was hacked” is a time-honored excuse. It woulda worked for Anthony Weiner, if not for all those meddling fact-lovers.

I don’t believe Joy Reid’s excuse, and so far the evidence doesn’t back her up. I think she said exactly what she believed at the time, and now it’s biting her in the ass.

But I also don’t think she should be fired for expressing an unstylish opinion about homosexuality, or about any other issue. Just as I didn’t think Kevin Williamson should’ve been fired, and I don’t think Fresno State’s Randa Jarrar should be fired. They have the right to express their opinions, and I have the right to agree, disagree, or just not give a damn.

(Incidentally: No prominent conservative, let alone an obscure one like me, has called for Jarrar to be fired. Nonetheless, Vox Dot Com still blames us.)

Now, if Reid is lying about this alleged hacker who broke into her old site and put up homophobic posts that would embarrass her a decade later, that’s another issue. Should a news outlet, or even MSNBC, keep a proven liar on staff? I don’t know if I would continue to employ a person who lied to my face, but I’m not a cable news executive. Brian Williams is still around, and CNN has adopted Dan Rather as a pet “truth-teller.” The people who claim to be the only legitimate news outlets don’t seem to care whether their employees have been exposed as shameless liars. So I really doubt Joy Reid will face any adverse consequences for this.

Plus, she’s got that identity-politics forcefield. If MSNBC fires her, they’ll be accused of both racism and sexism. And if you’re a liberal in 2018 America, “racist” and “sexist” are the worst accusations possible.

The safe bet is that nothing will happen to Joy Reid. The standard that applies to one side will not apply to the other side. Sooner or later, probably sooner, everybody will move on.

And if I’m wrong, if she does get fired? Well… best of luck to her, I guess. Them’s the breaks. As our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters tell us whenever a conservative gets fired for embarrassing an employer: That’s how the free market works, right?