[WARNING: The following article contains strong language]
On August 26, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos tweeted the following message to Texas schools:
The same day, GQ‘s Keith Olbermann tweeted a rather vulgar reply:
Many users were understandably troubled by Olbermann’s tweet, while some loved it:
Regardless, David Mastio of USA Today went on the hunt for answers regarding how Olbermann’s bosses at GQ felt about his calling DeVos a motherf***er. However, it seemed that no matter what Mastio did, GQ refused to offer him an explanation:
I tried to ask GQ Editor Jim Nelson about that, but he never replied. … Even a spokesperson for the Condé Nast-owned magazine didn’t have anything to say. … She emailed me: “GQ declines to comment.” …
When nobody wrote about Olbermann’s vulgarity by Monday, I kinda thought that was odd, so I sent a couple emails hoping to ask a few questions of the GQ editor and Bob Sauerberg, CEO of Condé Nast. Almost five hours later, not a peep.
That changed when I started asking my questions on Twitter. Suddenly the GQ PR folks got responsive. Within minutes, a representative was on the phone requesting to speak off the record.
Shortly after his off-the-record conversation with GQ’s representative, Mastio was told to check Olbermann’s Twitter feed, for Keith had “apologized.”
As Mastio mentions, Olbermann’s book promo is larger than the apology, he states that his vulgar language wasn’t appropriate for DeVos — implying it’s appropriate for others — and he didn’t delete his original “motherf***er” tweet.
Also of note, the title of his book is: Trump is F*cking Crazy.
This is not the apology of a sincere human being. This is a begrudging, under pressure non-apology. As of this publication, Olbermann’s “motherf***er” tweet has 19,400 retweets and nearly 53,000 “likes.” Meanwhile, his apology tweet has approximately 240 retweets and 850 “likes.”
Will Olbermann take his initial tweet down? Perhaps it will take more pressure form his bosses — or you guys (be nice).