2012 Washington State Republican Senate nominee Michael Baumgartner told a journalist to “go fuck yourself” in a follow up email to an interview after he was annoyed that the journalist asked him about Republican Missouri Senate candidate Tod Akin’s infamous “legitimate rape” comments and not ending the war in Afghanistan, a leading issue in Baumgartner’s campaign.
“Josh, this is Pat Feeks, a Navy SEAL killed last week in Afghanistan,” Baumgartner emailed the reporter. “Take a good look and then go fuck yourself.”
After his office issued a statement apologizing for his language, Baumgartner retracted his apology in a TV interview, saying the reporter “had it coming”
“Look, it’s a naughty word. It doesn’t amount to a whole lot,” he added.
Even in the mannerly world of political journalism, writers and editors have been known to employ the f-bomb on occasion.
For instance, in 2010, when now-Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith erroneously reported in Politico that The Daily Caller was struggling, Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson did not take the report kindly.
“The Daily Caller is ‘struggling’?” Carlson wrote in an email to Smith. “What a ludicrous hack job, and stupid. Fuck you.”
