Just so were clear: Claudine Gay bears no responsibility for what she did in front of Congress. Christopher Rufo used his stunning psychic power to get her to say these things in front of Congress.

I'm am also an independent to be sure and Democrats do piss me off as much as Republicans too. But what I dislike about your theory - and frankly everybody else's on this subject - is that by making it a target of the anti-woke mob or the Christopher Rufo or Fox News or George Soros or David E. Kelley, it somehow absolves Gay of what she did. And that offends me as a human being.

Even if I assume all of your theories in your artilce a correct - a big if - that does not absolve Gay of what she said and did. A hit job would only work if these people knew that Gay was going to make a fool of herself. Your defense of Gay makes less of her, in a way, that the right wing extremists because in your interpretation, that if she had simply said: I condemn hate speech in every form, the end result would have been the same.

Gay had an opportunity and a platform as much as Congress did. I don't care one way or another about her being fired, what bothers me is that is now that is the conversation rather than what she actually said and did. To be clear, I'm not saying I would have necessarily believed she meant it if she said she condemned hate speech: I do believe the whole hearing was bread and circuses. What I know is that when you're asked to condemn bigotry and hate speech, it is a yes or yes answer. I don't tolerate from a MAGA extremist when they don't give a direct answer to this question; why should I feel anything resembling sympathy for an educated woman who could not do the same? I don't give a damn about any of the background as to why she was there. She had an opportunity. She blew it. Was firing her an overreaction? ALmost certainly. But I'll never consider her a martyr.