Bret Stephens, who used to write for the Wall Street Journal, apparently can’t handle any criticism whatsoever, even if it’s joke:
This afternoon, I tweeted a brief joke about a well-known NYT op-Ed columnist.
It got 9 likes and 0 retweets. I did not @ him. He does not follow me.
He just emailed me, cc’ing my university provost. He is deeply offended that I called him a metaphorical bedbug.
— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 27, 2019
Dr. Karpf posted the email he got from Stephens:
He literally invites Karpf to his house to say it his face. LOL! And he even copied Karpf’s boss on the email, as if to try and get him in trouble!
I might could understand his response if Karpf called him something outrageous, but he called him a BEDBUG. Seriously, I’ve heard worse in kindergarten.
Stephens confirmed his email to Dr. Karpf in an interview on MSNBC this morning:
.@BretStephensNYT on quitting Twitter after being called a “bedbug”:
“Analogizing people to insects is always wrong … Being analogized to insects goes back to a lot of totalitarian regimes in the past." pic.twitter.com/Iyh9PpK2HS
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 27, 2019
What a lame and stupid response. Bret ‘Bedbug’ Stephens needs to get thicker skin.