Bart Hubbard’s tweet listed three dates: December 7, 1941 (the date of the Pearl Harbor attack, when Japanese warplanes sank six American warships, destroyed 191 aircraft, and killed 2,471 Americans), September 11, 2001, (the date of the coordinated terrorist attacks that claimed just shy of 3,000 American lives), and January 20, 2017, (the date of the inauguration of Donald Trump, a politician Hubbard apparently doesn’t like).
After the twitterverse lost its collective mind (as it is wont to do), Hubbard apologized for the tweet, deleting it two hours later. However, he also 'pinned' the tweet before deleting it, meaning that it would be the first tweet users would see upon viewing his feed.
— Bart Hubbuch (@BartHubbuch) January 20, 2017
Notably, Hubbard did not apologize to the families or survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. The twitterscape was not amused.
— Austin Doyle (@AustinDoyle17) January 20, 2017
Hubbard has been the New York Post’s NFL writer since 2007. He has made a few waves outside of the world of sport, and most recently was in the news for — you guessed it — putting his foot in his mouth on Twitter.
"Totally not-shocking fact: The [New England] Patriots have never had a black [quarterback] start a game in their 57-year history. Jacoby Brissett would be the first," he tweeted in September 2016. The implication that the football team was racist for never having a black quarterback caused such a furor among Patriot die-hards that Hubbard briefly deleted his account.