In April of this year, The Atlantic hired conservative writer Kevin Williamson, a longtime writer and editor for the National Review. William prophetically joked with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, saying, "You know, the campaign to have me fired will begin 11 seconds after you announce that you've hired me."
Goldberg didn't seem concerned. "The Atlantic isn't the New York Times. It isn't high church for liberals," he told Williamson. Then the anti-conservative, pro-choice, social-media mob descended.
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Within the week, Goldberg sent an email to staff which read in part: "Last week, I mentioned my belief that Kevin would represent an important addition to our roster of Ideas columnists, and I addressed the controversy surrounding some of his past tweeting and writing. I expressed my belief that no one's life work should be judged by an intemperate tweet, and that such an episode should not necessarily stop someone from having a fruitful career at The Atlantic. Late yesterday afternoon, information came to our attention that has caused us to reconsider this relationship."
The "tweeting" in question was a four-year-old post on abortion and capital punishment that had been dug up and widely recirculated by Williamson's critics. "The law should treat abortion like any other homicide," Williamson had tweeted. He later added, "I'm torn on capital punishment generally; but treating abortion as homicide means what it means."
To put things into proper perspective, Williamson explained in a subsequent article, "I had responded to a familiar pro-abortion argument: that pro-lifers should not be taken seriously in our claim that abortion is the willful taking of an innocent human life unless we are ready to punish women who get abortions with long prison sentences."
Williamson joined Glenn Beck in the studio today to discuss, among other topics, how the Left uses social media mobs to launch frighteningly effective campaigns against conservatives.
Watch the interview in the clip below.