As Twitchy told you, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has quit Twitter … but not before trying to get a George Washington University professor fired for comparing him to a bedbug.

This afternoon, I tweeted a brief joke about a well-known NYT op-Ed columnist. It got 9 likes and 0 retweets. I did not @ him. He does not follow me. He just emailed me, cc’ing my university provost. He is deeply offended that I called him a metaphorical bedbug. — davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 27, 2019

Alright fine… here is the email: pic.twitter.com/A4E5I6CoB6 — davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 27, 2019

Stephens later claimed that he wasn’t ackshually trying to get the professor into any trouble. Which was a load of you-know-what, of course. For what it’s worth, GWU provost Forrest Maltzman appears willing to play ball with Stephens … sort of:

Wow.

Is this the academic equivalent of, "Sir, this is a Wendy's"? — Yvonne Dutchover (@ydutchover) August 27, 2019

Boom ? — Tracie Davis (@TracieLDavis1) August 27, 2019

This is better than Bret deserves. — Jon Wallace (@snego) August 27, 2019

It really is. What Bret deserves is a photo of Maltzman giving him the middle finger. But this will do for now.

This is a really bold move for a university. They tend not to court this sort of controversy. https://t.co/vW4VUpVDEP — Chris Quintana (@CQuintanaDC) August 27, 2019