Weigel removed the post from his timeline, and apologized to Sonmez, saying “I apologize and did not mean to cause any harm.” But it wasn’t good enough for her, and she continued to blast him.
The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez took to Twitter to blast a fellow employee of the Jeff Bezos owned outlet. She took aim at David Weigel for retweeting a post that read "Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it's polar or sexual."
In response to Weigel's repost of YouTuber Harless's joke, Sonmez wrote: "Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!" Implying that she believes that WaPo should censor employees' tweets, and restrict their free speech online. Weigel covers politics for the Post. Sonmez is a national political reporter.
https://rumble.com/embed/vq6iif/?pub=2n05b
Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed! pic.twitter.com/zs4dX4qprH
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez)
Weigel removed the post from his timeline, and apologized to Sonmez. "I just removed a retweet of an offensive joke. I apologize and did not mean to cause any harm." But it wasn't good enough for her, and she continued to blast him.
I just removed a retweet of an offensive joke. I apologize and did not mean to cause any harm.
— David Weigel (@daveweigel)
Even after Weigel apologized, Sonmez kept on. The apology seemed to mean nothing. Despite her calling out Weigel, she didn't like being called out on the call out, and complained that anyone who didn't like her calls for censorship only mean that they, too, were misogynist.
She spoke about an incident where she MeToo'd the LA Times Beijing Bureau Chief, piling on to a narrative about Jonathan Kaiman being a sexual predator. The incidents, upon closer inspection, appear to be a few bad dates where drunken participants engaged in sex and then regretted it later.
Kaiman was called out over a romantic encounter with a colleague where Laura Tucker took Kaiman home to her place, and they went to bed together. In 2013, the pair "mutually and consensually undressed and got into bed." Part way through the encounter, Tucker changed her mind, Kaiman tried to reconnect, the decided he should leave, and then Tucker reinstated the encounter. In 2018, she expressed her displeasure on Medium. Kaiman apologized, but it wasn't enough.
Then Sonmez piled on. After the public post from Tucker, and the apology from Kaiman, Sonmez took her opportunity to jump in. Sonmez reached out to Kaiman. and told "him about a sexual encounter they'd had the previous September that unfolded after a long, alcohol-filled day and night of partying. She wrote in part that 'it has taken me a while to fully process what happened that night….I remember thinking your behavior was aggressive at the time; it's taken me a while to realize that actually, that kind of forcefulness totally crosses the line into inappropriate behavior.'"
Kaiman reached out, saying it was "a messy, drunken hookup," and that he was shocked by her allegations. They talked it out.
Sonmez then ruined his career. She contacted a friend on the FCCC, which was meeting, and intended to discuss Tucker's accusations. Sonmez' friend on the board used her accusations, which were given anonymously to the rest of the board, to essentially indict Kaiman for the Tucker incident, and his career was over. After Kaiman was ousted and resigned, Sonmez came public that the second accuser was in fact herself.
I’ve heard from some folks who seem to be angry that I publicly called out a colleague’s sexist tweet. Here is a personal thread on why speaking out matters. https://t.co/nmVqaD7nOk
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez)
Sonmez was barred by the Post from covering sexual assault cases after the outlet came to believe that there was a conflict of interest. She also blasted Kobe Bryant over sexual misconduct only a few brief days after he and his daughter died in a tragic helicopter crash.
Sonmez got support from Soledad O'Brien, who sarcastically said it was "Totally totally normal" that Weigel would retweet a joke. O'Brien, also a journalist, perhaps also believes that outlets should act as censors over journalists' free speech online.
It is TOTALLY NORMAL that a @washingtonpost political reporter retweets this misogynistic crap. Totally totally normal. https://t.co/jqjLFeNdhA
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien)
After she blasted her colleague for not even making a joke himself, but sharing it, Sonmez complained about people slamming her for this.
Banner week for Twitter, where the natural response to a person condemning sexism appears to be … sexism at ever-greater orders of magnitude. pic.twitter.com/m1oU7l4eSm
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez)
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And continued to call for her employer to censor the tweets of her colleagues.
As I was saying … an absolute delight! pic.twitter.com/9jZGf8KVtq
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez)
More and more people began to come out of the woodwork to pile on Weigel for sharing a joke, and Sonmez ate it all up with the spoon of attention she so seems to crave. She claimed it was "painful and confusing when friends say and do things that are wrong," but that this "makes it all the more uncomfortable to call them out—even though it's necessary to do so."
Thank you, Goldie. I really appreciate this. I have long considered Dave a good friend as well. It’s painful and confusing when friends say and do things that are wrong, and makes it all the more uncomfortable to call them out — even though it’s necessary to do so.
— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez)
Sonmez didn't call Weigel, like she did Kaiman, before going public with her accusations. Instead, she called him out publicly for sharing a joke that she didn't think was funny, and even after he apologized used the incident to garner attention and notoriety for herself, all while claiming to be a virtuous victim.
Really, Sonmez is just another woke journalist who can't take a joke.
