State Dept Official Accidentally Tweets #UnitedForGaza; Conservatives Think He Loves Terrorists
Outrage has ensued after an American official tweeted something that ostensibly supports Hamas’s occupation of the Gaza strip, even though it can easily be explained as an accident. That official? Rick Stengel, former managing editor of Time magazine and current Undersecretary of State of Public Diplomacy.
The offending tweet:
Deputy of @JohnKerry & Time's veteran Rick @stengel tweeted #UnitedForGaza in apparent goof(the tweet is still there) pic.twitter.com/K2I8ElJtTE
— Sadegh Ghorbani (@GhorbaniSadegh) July 20, 2014
For reference, this was the tweet he wanted to write (after deleting the first one):
.@StateDept. Critical for a full, credible and unimpeded intl investigation of crash. Urge Russia to honor it's commitment.#unitedforukraine
— Rick Stengel (@stengel) July 20, 2014
And then he apologized with a flippant “My bad.” Which means he loves terrorists, but more importantly, he probably hates America:
Earlier tweet with wrong hashtag was a mistake. My bad.
— Rick Stengel (@stengel) July 20, 2014
In all seriousness, let’s give Stengel the benefit of the doubt here: It makes absolutely no sense for someone to write out an entire tweet about diplomatic relations with Russia, and then suddenly throw in a hashtag about Gaza (unless the State Department has just discovered non-sequiturs). What likely happened is that Stengel began typing in “#UnitedForUkraine,” and Twitter (or an app like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) automatically inserted a similar (but more popular) trending hashtag in its place, such as the similarly-spelled #UnitedForGaza:
Nevertheless, conservative media has leapt on him for attempting to pull a Selena Gomez/Rihanna/NBA stars, and accused him of being a secret Palestine lover.
From the Washington Times, which quoted some of the angry folks:
Twitter users weren’t buying Mr. Stengel’s apology.
“Please, enlighten us as to how one incorrectly uses a hashtag like #UnitedForGaza. Maybe autocorrect changed #UnitedForGaga?” tweeted Sean.
“‘My bad.’ That’s something a 12 yr old would say. Shameful that you represent this country,” said Rachel Ward.
And in the replies to his apology, there’s even more accusations that Stengel is okay with terrorists:
@BarryMaicock1 @stengel Guess the "stand with terrorist group Hamas" is only used on internal tweets! Wouldn't want the public to know!
— Kitty D (@ConservativeGM) July 20, 2014
Morale of the story: No matter how explainable his error may be, if you think Rick Stengel hates America, then he does.
(Also, note to Stengel: “my bad” is probably not good diplomatic parlance.)
[The Washington Times]
[Image via screenshot]
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
