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Morrisey Right To Fire Ex-Aide

People have the right to speak freely in the United States, even when what they say is repugnant to others.  But when their public espousal of objectionable beliefs affects their employer adversely, it is not inappropriate for them to be sent packing.

W.Va. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey fired his office’s assistant communications director, Carrie Bowe, on Thursday. The action came after a YouTube video, apparently recorded in 2012, came to light.

In it, Bowe and others make comments of the type heard often from white supremacists.

Morrisey fired her immediately, with his office saying her behavior in not making her participation in the video known earlier was “contrary to the transparency requirements for being a member of this office.” And, added Morrisey spokesman Curtis Johnson, Bowe’s comments in the video “do not reflect the opinion or the perspective of the attorney general or this office.”

After the video was publicized several days ago, Bowe took to the internet to apologize. She said in a Facebook post that she was “working with all my power to remove the content” in the YouTube video.

Not good enough.

Bowe was an adult when she participated in the video.  Doing so demonstrated a clear lack of good judgment of the type Morrisey should expect in his office.

Even having Bowe in his office would have cast a shadow over everyone in it. It would have been the kind of unfair shadow that sometimes seems to fall on West Virginians as a people.

Finally, Morrisey certainly is entitled to wonder about the qualifications of a communications specialist who, just a few years ago, apparently did not understand the internet.

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