Ye of 'Bad Faith'

On Monday, The Wrap reported that MSNBC had decided not to renew its contract with Sam Seder, the actor, director, and comedian who has also been a longstanding contributor to the network. The reason for the decision, per the report, was a tweet Seder had posted in 2009 and since deleted: “Don’t care re Polanski, but I hope if my daughter is ever raped it is by an older truly talented man w/a great sense of mise en scene.” It was a joke, Seder said, that he had made at the expense of those who had made excuses for Roman Polanski, the director who, in 1977—when he was 43—pled guilty to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. (Polanski has since been accused of assault by three more women, who say he sexually victimized them when they were teenagers.)

The tie-severing seems to have come—MSNBC has yet post, published in November by the alt-right activist and titled “.” Cernovich had plumbed the archive to find that tweet; he acknowledged in writing about it that “some are saying Seder was making a joke or being sarcastic.” Still, Seder lost his job. As he put it in , , speculating that Cernovich had led a campaign against him to silence his criticisms of President Trump and the U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, “This smear involves the willful misinterpretation of a tweet that I posted in 2009.” The clip was titled “BREAKING: I’m Under Attack by the Nazi Alt-Right.”