Over the weekend, Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Joe Cowley took his own career into a nosedive and crash landed it in flaming wreckage of discrimination and sexism.  One of the fundamentally great things about Twitter is that sooner or later, ignorance is exposed and those people self-destruct.  Joe Cowley was just the latest victim of falling on his own tweeting sword.

In case you missed the story, Deadspin has the handy recap of Cowley not only going on a sexist rant against female flight attendants and pilots, but female sportswriter Sloane Martin when she dared to stand up for her gender.  The audacity.  Cowley tried to laugh it off as being some kind of professional wrestling villian, but he was the only one laughing at such gems like…

“I’m more likely to see a Squatch before I see a hot flight attendant. Then again, I think the airlines are hiring Squatch’s to do that job.”

“Chick pilot. Should I be OK with that or am I just a sexist caveman?”

“it’s a fact women followers stay attached to me longer.”

“hottie up that pic”

Hilarious.  Phenomenal.  Those words of Cowley were SO FUNNY that the entire sports universe turned against him in a way not seen since his old Sun-Times colleague Jay Mariotti was in the headlines.  After Cowley’s ranting was through, voices came from everywhere expressing little surprise that he was finally detonating for all the world to see given his past coarse, offensive behavior.  But then Cowley did something that Jay Mariotti himself might look down upon.

Joe Cowley deleted his Twitter account.

Just like that, he was gone.  He never said he was sorry, just some sort of halfway apology where he opined that he thought people had “figured this account out” and he was “wrong.”

It is the coward’s way out.  Plain and simple.  Instead of actually apologizing, instead of owning up to your mistake, instead of taking the @cst_Cowley replies in a stand-up fashion, Joe Cowley ran away and hid from the criticism.  

Well, he hasn’t hid completely.  No, unbelievably, since Cowley’s abusive rampage on Sunday afternoon, he has written three articles for the Chicago Sun-Times covering the Bulls-Sixers series published after his controversial tweets:

 

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In none of those three columns is there any reference to the scandal that plagued Cowley this weekend.  There is no apology.  There are no words on the Sun-Times website that address the controversy.  No remarks from Cowley or the editors.  Only in the universe inhabited by the Chicago Sun-Times did their high-profile sports columnist not go on a sexist Twitter rant.  In fact, the only allusion whatsoever to Cowley’s remarks are in the comments section of those articles.  Those comments on the Sun-Times website include these responses to the real world where Cowley’s tweets still do exist…

“Did Mr Handsome write this???”

“not enough sexism. I enjoy my Cowley best with a disgusting amount of arrogance and ignorance.”

“I hope this paper realizes how awful his behavior has been and does something about it. Controversy may generate attention and page views, but a sexist and bully does not deserve this large of an audience.”

It has now been almost two full days since Cowley’s Twitter rant and neither himself nor his paper has said anything about it.  That is distasteful and embarrassing.  In fact, it is just as deplorable as the original diatribe.  Clearly, some form of disciplinary behavior has to take place in this case, at least to anyone with a rational mind.  Maybe Cowley has learned a lesson.  Hopefully he’ll even change for the better.  Until that happens, the silence from Cowley and the Chicago Sun-Times is deafening.  This is 2012 and those two days of silence are nearly an eternity.  

By doing nothing, and by allowing Cowley to continue to file columns as if nothing ever happened, the Chicago Sun-Times is endorsing his sexist behavior.  It’s insulting to the respectable people that work at the Chicago Sun-Times and all of its readers to do so.  

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