UPDATE: Blow tweeted an apology around 10 o'clock Friday morning: "Btw, the comment I made about Mormonism during Wed.'s debate was inappropriate, and I regret it. I'm willing to admit that with no caveats."
New York Times columnist Charles Blow reacted angrily to comments by Mitt Romney during Wednesday night’s GOP debate on CNN, mocking Romney’s Mormon faith in a post on his Twitter account. Evidently reacting to Romney’s debate comments on the breakdown of minority families, Blow wrote: “Let me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear.”
Jim Geraghty at National Review, who first reported on the offensive tweet [1], pointed out the media double standard:
We just witnessed ESPN firing an employee for using the phrase “chink in the armor” in a headline about the New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin. While no one could prove a desire to mock Lin’s ethnic heritage, and the employee expressed great regret for what he insisted was an unthinking lapse, it was deemed unacceptable even as an honest mistake. Regardless of what one thinks of ESPN’s reaction, one is left to marvel at the contrast before us. Would the New York Times find it acceptable if one of their columnists chose to mock Muslim religious practices? Jewish faith practices? But mocking some religions is okay? Doesn’t run afoul of any standards of the paper?
(A similar crack recently appeared in a guest post [2] on the paper’s regular “Room for Debate” online feature.)
The inimitable Ace of Spades responded [3] as only he can (vulgarity warning).
Ironically, Blow went after CNN commentator Roland Martin in a February 11 column [4] for two Twitter posts Martin made while watching Super Bowl commercials, which gay activists claimed were offensive. Blow’s criticism of Martin opened with a sentence that he should have taken to heart: “Twitter claims another casualty.”
As far as the underlying issue of minority families, Blogger Tom Maguire has a great rundown of what other liberal Times columnists have said about the breakdown of the black family...including Blow himself, who praised a similar message in 2008 when it came from Barack Obama [5]!
But now, Blow's single-parent kids are “amazing!” and Romney wears magic underwear.
Blow responded to criticism of yet another offensive tweet (accusing conservatives of not knowing about "recreational sex") with this gem of dehumanizing Twittery: "Time to scratch some of this right wing lice out of my timeline. Be back in a sec..." He then proceeded to block some conservatives from accessing his Twitter status, a typical habit for Blow.