Last weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an editorial written by the National Review's Kevin D. Williamson titled "Laverne Cox is Not a Woman," in which he argues that Time's trans cover subject will forever be a man even if she says she's, in fact, a woman. Today, the story reached its inevitable conclusion: the Sun-Times has pulled the story and apologized.

You can read the full post on the National Review, which runs vile shit daily and thus is under no real pressure to remove this particular piece of retrograde flailing. The Sun-Times, however, at least has the veneer of a respectable journalistic outlet, which makes their subsequent apology even the more laughable.

"We try to present a range of views on an issue, not only those views we may agree with, but also those we don't agree with. A recent op-ed piece we ran online that was produced by another publication initially struck as provocative. Upon further consideration, we concluded the essay did not include some key facts and its overall tone was not consistent with what we seek to publish. The column failed to acknowledge that the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association have deemed transgender-related care medically necessary for transgender people. It failed as well to acknowledge the real and undeniable pain and discrimination felt by transgender people, who suffer from notably higher rates of depression and suicide. We have taken the post down and we apologize for the oversight."

What they mean is that they wanted to make the internet outraged but are sorry that they made the internet a bit more outraged than was politically comfortable.

We can all now resume not reading the Chicago Sun-Times.

[image via Getty]