During the final presidential debate, Sue-Ann Levy — columnist for Accordion City’s worst newspaper, Mayor Rob Ford’s loudest cheerleader (Toronto Life called her his “personal stenographer”), defender of the city against firefighters and all-round lowerer-of-the-bar — decided to make a tweet:
A tweet-storm ensued, during which Levy suggested that he’s secretly a Muslim (and you know, they can’t be up to any good) and that people “might want to check clips on YouTube from CNN that show otherwise. Sorry this might make the LibLeft cringe.”
It was the usual right-left crossfire until Jonathan Kay, columnist for the National Post — the paper that the Sun wants to be, if it ever grows up — stepped into the fray. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Kay or his writing, he’s generally considered conservative on a number of issues, in a sort of Barry Goldwater style. Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of his writings:
Kay often endorses views regarded as conservative, particularly on the subjects of Israel,[16] political correctness[17] and policy toward North American Aboriginals.[18] However, he also has dissented from conservatives on a variety of issues. In recent years, for example, he has written articles raising awareness about income inequality,[19] and questioning the conduct of the Iraq War.[20] Kay has also been a strong supporter of gay rights. In 2010, Kay argued that conservatives are wrong to continue challenging the majority scientific view on global warming.[21] In response, Financial Post columnist Terence Corcoran, a noted climate-change skeptic, argued that Kay’s support of the anthropogenic climate change theory was based on unproven environmentalist dogmas.[22]
Kay’s writing is generally dismissive of the claims made by the 9/11 Truth Movement, and they have responded with criticism of him. He has been accused of attacking academic freedom because, in his writing, he criticizes the public funding of academic research that is based on 9/11 skepticism.[23][24]
When he entered the debate, it turned into the “Leopold!” moment from this classic Bugs Bunny cartoon:
Here’s Jonathan Kay’s tweet:
@sueannlevy: Can we look fwd 2 a Sun column in which u expand on your thesis that Obama is “Muslim”/spouts “Muslim BS’? twitter.com/jonkay/status/…
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) October 23, 2012
Realizing that Kay had brought a gun to her knife fight, her reply was:
@jonkay I’ll wait for you to do it. Not my beat. Wouldn’t want to tread on your turf.
— Sue-Ann Levy (@SueAnnLevy) October 23, 2012
Kay’s response:
@sueannlevy Your walkback apology on Birther Tweet could be: “Im sorry. I was distressed by how much ass Obama was kicking. I wasnt myself!”
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) October 23, 2012
You can see the whole scuffle summarized on Torontoist, which closes with this tweet from Kay:
I dont think I have ever seen a person so determined to self-destruct in a single unrepentant hate-Twittering session as @sueannlevy tonight
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) October 23, 2012
5 replies on “Sue-Ann Levy’s Twitter Self-Immolation and Her “Leopold” Moment with Jonathan Kay”
I don’t twitter. The whole thing strikes me as half-witted, Kakrafoonic chatter. So I don’t keep up with it. So tell me, is it common now for journalists or other professionals in public life to publicly bicker like siblings, via Twitter.
I stopped reading Sue-Ann Levy when she started using the term “leftists” as a pejorative term to describe those members of Toronto council who don’t line up to lick Rob Ford’s shoes. Quite frankly, I haven’t been all that big a fan of the extreme left wing idealism of Toronto council under such out-of-touch-with-reality dreamers as David Miller, and Barbara Hall, but I don’t choose to employ ad-hominem attacks as my first line of criticism.
Study it out!
All these years I figured the cartoon Leopold had to have been modeled on somebody, and through a happy coincidence of a friend’s post, found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Stokowski
😀
Anonymous Coward: Yup! In fact, for the longest time, I thought “Leopold” was a reference to Leonard Bernstein.