"White House aide suspended for threatening reporter"

It is reassuring to listen to press conferences led by Jen Psaki ["p" is silent], who is both good at her job and not an asshole. She, for instance, already had extended service providing a similiar service in the Obama State Department. One recent question regarded what AP summaries this way:

White House deputy press secretary T.J. Ducklo has been suspended for a week without pay after he reportedly issued a sexist and profane threat to a journalist seeking to cover his relationship with another reporter.

This is after President Biden earlier said this:

“I’m not joking when I say this: If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I will fire you on the spot,” he said that day. “No ifs, ands or buts.”

I take this as not merely a flourish, but something with some bite. We can parse it some, talk of "colleague" and so forth. A total zero toleration rule whenever someone might "talk down to someone," which literally covers a range of human language, would be a bit absurd. But, the facts here are troubling. Per an article cited:

During the off-the-record call, Ducklo made derogatory and misogynistic comments, accusing Palmeri of only reporting on his relationship—which, due to the ethics questions that factor into the relationship between a journalist and White House official, falls under the purview of her reporting beat—because she was “jealous” that an unidentified man in the past had “wanted to fuck” McCammond “and not you.” Ducklo also accused Palmeri of being “jealous” of his relationship with McCammond. (Palmeri had no prior relationship or communication with McCammond before calling her to report on the Playbook item, which was a story that she was assigned and had not independently pursued.)

This crosses a line. The coverage of the press office official has included reference to his serious health problems involving cancer. I saw some suggestion that it, including perhaps medication, would affect his judgment. Eh. We can't handwave this sort of thing. It is also suggested that he needs the health insurance. I find this a bit amusing on some level (sorry), but even that is unclear -- after all, ACA ("Obamacare," right?) particularly would help him here. Would losing his job mean losing his insurance? Why not just move him not just from dealing with this one publication (which is reportedly the next step, though unclear how that will work if his job overlaps) but in a role that just doesn't deal with the press directly.

I do think, though it was not touched upon in JP's reply, that his health issues might have had an influence on the response. Either way, what happened is serious. We need to draw lines here, especially since in the past (maybe still) Biden himself has been looked upon by some as of questionable on proper treatment of women. I noted that I thought the temptation to get a certain baseball player too often ignored his problems. Sometimes, there will be pushback "it doesn't matter" or "hey, we did something."

The #MeToo Era among other things underlines that sometimes that sentiment is not enough. Yes, we should act reasonably, factoring in humanity. But, lines should be drawn. I'm unsure if things went far enough here. The whole thing is more complicated with the health issues than normally the case.

Update: He resigned. I think that is appropriate. We had a few weeks of basically no drama, so we were due for something. The health issue probably made things a bit more complicated. But, Biden put in a high standard. And, the person crossed the line. His involvement with a reporter alone probably was likely to cause problems given life these days. People with some insight in line drawing of that nature have flagged the issue.