Janelle Irwin Taylor
An up-and-coming IT guy learned the hard way how old comments can come back to bite, especially in the era of rampant social media.
Ethan Czahor, the brief Chief Technology Officer for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Super PAC, has resigned from his almost-post after a series of lewd tweets were discovered on his Twitter feed from as recently as 2012.
The Jeb Bush presidential campaign PAC reportedly accepted Czahor’s resignation Tuesday night, according to a tweet from Alex Leary and others.
In a controversy that began Monday, Czahor fell victim to sexist and homophobic tweets as old as 2009 being dug up by Jeb Bush opposition.
Czahor responded on his largely inactive Twitter feed by pointing out he had deleted the offensive tweets.
“I deleted some old jokes I made years ago that I no longer find funny or appropriate. #learning #maturing,” the tweet read at about 5:30 p.m. on Monday.
But the damage was already done. By the time news spread of Czahor’s tweets dating back to 2009, reporters had already dug up more. The Huffington Post reported Tuesday, during a radio show in January 2008 while working as the host of the radio program “The Ethan Show” at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, Czahor made inapporpriate remarks about Martin Luther King Jr.
Conservative Jeb Bush supporters were quick to defend Czahor on Twitter pointing out that it sounded like them as young conservatives. This doesn’t seem like banter that will help Jeb’s presidential hopes all that much.
According to Leary’s tweet, the Right to Rise PAC said, “While Ethan has apologized for regrettable and insensitive comments, they do not reflect the views of Governor Bush or his organization and it is appropriate for him to step aside. We wish him the best.”
However, on Monday the PAC seemed to be supporting Czahor after merely asking that he remove the tweets.
“Governor Bush believes the comments were inappropriate,” Bush’s spokesperson Kristy Campbell told The New York Times. “Ethan is a great talent in the tech world, and we are very excited to have him on board the Right to Rise PAC.”
Prior to be offered the post as CTO of Right to Rise, Czahor co-founded the website hipster.com and created a mini-site for Jeb Bush’s speech in Detroit.
