Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece by Paul Butler, WaPo contributing columnist, MSNBC analyst, and Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Butler argued that Georgetown Law should fire Ilya Shapiro over a “racist tweet” that was — spoiler alert! — not racist.
Opinion by Paul Butler: Yes, you should be fired for a tweet if that tweet reveals you do not have the ability to do your job.https://t.co/zbfEKOFZfe
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 20, 2022
You could certainly read Butler’s piece if you so choose. We did. But we also read Drew Holden’s thread about it, and what Holden wrote makes for infinitely better reading and infinitely less stupidity:
This piece is stupid and bad faith top-to-bottom but where it really insults the intelligence of the reader is when the author claims that Ilya Shapiro has “a pattern of bias that isn’t just a poor choice of words” because he…also opposed the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor. https://t.co/PUpA9hXcCu pic.twitter.com/isKFWbyJ8M
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
If you get the sense that Paul Butler’s piece is a complete disaster and an affront to logic and basic intelligence, you’re right.
Thread — embarrassingly bad reasoning for a law professor. https://t.co/FJfh4FCzR2
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) February 22, 2022
Holden leaves no filthy stone unturned in order to expose Butler’s shameless smear campaign:
Oh and because Senators were anti-Semitic in 1916. I don’t believe Shapiro was among them, fwiw
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
Let me break this down for you: this piece only exists because, with the wisdom of hindsight, even the most unserious people on the left recognize that firing Shapiro for this tweet is preposterous.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
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So the author endeavors to set the tweet in some broader context about how it *isn’t really* just a tweet – it’s a pattern.
Sure, fine. This is a common variety of op-Ed. Who knows, maybe Butler has juice here. pic.twitter.com/AAAj9m8krn
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
But then that pattern just…doesn’t materialize. Butler points out that Shapiro opposed a Hispanic woman’s appointment – of a judicial philosophy opposite Shapiro’s own – but not a white woman (with whom he agrees a lot more).
That’s it. pic.twitter.com/9mrS9UUNV6
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
Instead, Butler focuses on legal-connected racism *from a bunch of people who aren’t Shapiro.* The other two examples come from the WW1-era and a different one of Butler’s Georgetown colleagues.
It should go without saying, but these do not demonstrate *anything* about Shapiro. pic.twitter.com/YrMFD9WcF9
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
Then, having provided no supporting evidence, Butler simply concludes that Shapiro’s supposed racism would harm black students.
But, you see, this is how the circular logic works. pic.twitter.com/RoN8E78hbP
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
The point all along has been the imaginary psychic harm of students who *believe* Shapiro is a racist.
The bell is already rung – these types of pieces are just self-serving window dressing because, to people who think like Butler, Shapiro was in the wrong all along.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
And so now, if Georgetown dares not fire Shapiro, students and faculty can hold up this piece and all the others and say see! We’re hurting! Meet our demands! The Bad Man has to go!
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
No where in that chain will there be any evidence – to say nothing of proof – of wrongdoing.
But you’ll have the outrage nonetheless. And, increasingly, that’s all you need.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 21, 2022
It’s all about the outrage. Intellectual honesty be damned.
Competence be damned.
If I were a Georgetown Law student, I’d be much more concerned that a tenured professor was incapable of producing a coherent argument in a published newspaper piece. What student will want to make the “wretched choice” of being graded by someone who willfully misreads text? https://t.co/xPG112E462
— tedfrank (my prepositions are “from” and “of”) (@tedfrank) February 21, 2022
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