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White House Official Tracked Down and Fired Over Insulting Tweets

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "BBC reports that Jofi Joseph, a senior National Security Council staffer who was a key member of the White House team negotiating on Iran's nuclear weapons program, has been fired ... after a months-long probe into a barrage of tweets that included caustic criticisms of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top NSC officials, especially Ben Rhodes – whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi. Joseph, who posted under the now defunct Twitter name @NatSecWonk, gave a lacerating commentary on anything from policy to personal appearance. 'Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Weiner,' he tweeted, referring to the scandal-hit former New York mayoral candidate and his wife, a former aide of Hillary Clinton. He tweeted that Mrs Clinton 'had few policy goals and no wins' in the Middle East. He said Chelsea Clinton was 'assuming all of her parents' vices,' and targeted figures such as Republican commentator Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney's wife Ann for their looks and weight. Many in the foreign policy community reacted with shock to the revelation that Joseph was the mystery tweeter because Joseph was well known among policy wonks and his wife, Carolyn Leddy, is a well-respected professional staffer on the Republican side of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 'What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments,' said Joseph in an apology. 'I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted.'"

8 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. For an archive of his account by barlevg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wayback Machine evidently doesn't bother with Twitter, but the page can still (for now) be found on the Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://twitter.com/NatSecWonk

    1. Re:For an archive of his account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Finally the NSA archive of "everything" has paid off ... and it only took them a few months to find out who it was. No wonder we're harvesting anything and everything our citizens do.

    2. Re:For an archive of his account by dyingtolive · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think he's saying that he's not the troll Slashdot needs; he's the troll Slashdot DESERVES.

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  2. I can't believe ... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't believe that any prominent person tweets at all. The medium encourages inflammatory behavior and doesn't let there be any context. Recipe for disaster.

  3. Re:malarchy...thats nothin. by idontgno · · Score: 5, Funny

    Back in my day we'd track down, invite them to a duck-hunting outing, and SHOOT the bastard ourselves.

    FTFY.

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  4. Everyone loses when we vote Repiblicrat by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While firing the unprofessional jerk after he was outed is perfectly defensible (I have no problem with it at all), the government did get caught working against America's interests again:

    The website Politico said White House officials had worked over months to discover the identity of Mr Joseph - a key member of the team negotiating over Iran's nuclear programme.

    It said his travel and shopping habits had been profiled by parsing over 2,000 tweets.

    Why THE FUCK was the government spending time investigating this? And why the fuck is this not a big secret?

    The BushBama whitehouse is seriously confused about what the country needs from its government, and over the last 12 years they have just gotten repeatedly more brazen and open about it. Is it simply that really, nobody cares?

    I pay taxes in order for you to funnel them to obscurely-overbilling contractors for substandard work, so that they can then divert a portion of their obscene profits to the re-election campaigns of the people in congress and administration, who make the funneling happen. That is why we have government: to give crooks a non-violent outlet for their greed and need to victimize society. A few billion dollars here, a few billion dollars there .. we have a strong economy and can sustain that.

    But I don't pay taxes for you people to spend it tracking tweets. That's not what government is for! All these crooks need to get out of the surveillance game and back into mainstream profitable corruption. And we voters should insist upon it. Please, everyone: stop voting Republicrat.

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  5. Obama Administration Shill Alert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any time Benghazi comes up, it's imperative for shills to employee "but-but-but-Bush!"

  6. Re:Secret Emails and they fire a tweeter? by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just using the tools put in place. Evil, but hardly as evil as using the surveillance state to squash political dissent which received much less mass media attention that this internal witch hunt. Key OWS supporters lost their jobs, were put on no fly and do not employ lists but since they did not have big Washington insider status, they get no press.