The Boston Globe pulled a column suggesting waiters should tamper with the food of Trump administration officials.
“I’m not saying you should tamper with anyone’s food, as that could get you into trouble. You might lose your serving job. But you’d be serving America. And you won’t have any regrets years later,” freelance journalist Luke O’Neil wrote in the piece, which is now unavailable on the Globe’s website.
{mosads}O’Neil opened the 1,200-word column last week by saying that one of his biggest regrets in life was “not pissing in Bill Kristol’s salmon” when he waited on the conservative political analyst at a Cambridge, Mass., restaurant.
He also addressed a number of instances of Trump officials facing protesters or being forced out of restaurants while dining.
According to The Washington Post, the Globe pulled the piece following backlash from conservatives, who took to Twitter to call it “hateful” and “counter-productive.”
Initially, the Globe edited O’Neil’s column, changing a number of lines and removing the line addressing waiters. Mediaite reported that the revised column was topped with an editor’s note reading: “A version of this column as originally published did not meet Globe standards and has been changed. The Globe regrets the previous tone of the piece.”
But the paper ultimately pulled the entire column, sparking further backlash on social media, with some calling the decision “pathetic.”
O’Neil, who wrote regularly for the Globe, told the Post that he “will never write for them again.”
“They completely cut my throat on this,” he said.
He told the Post that he has received death threats over the article, but does not apologize for it “whatsoever.”
“I wasn’t really advocating to piss in somebody’s food, that’s crazy,” he said. “But I do think these people should be made uncomfortable in public. I don’t think that’s a … radical idea.”
The Globe confirmed to The Hill that the column was removed, saying it “should never have been published.”
“Editorial protocol was not followed and the column did not receive sufficient editorial oversight,” a spokesperson for the paper said in a statement. “Globe Opinion is a platform for a variety of viewpoints and welcomes a range of voices to promote discussion on important topics in a productive way.”
— This post was updated on Monday, April 15, at 2:10 pm to include comment from The Globe