Kevin Williamson is a deft provocateur, someone who forces readers to confront difficult arguments not oft expressed by other writers on either side of the aisle. His writing is among the best in the business — but it’s not for everyone. That’s fair enough.

Intent on derailing his new gig at the Atlantic, Media Matters found audio from a podcast discussion of Williamson flirting again with the position that women who get abortions should be subject to hanging. He was fired within 24 hours. Though Williamson admitted to being “squishy on capital punishment,” he ultimately affirmed in the conversation he was “absolutely willing to see abortion treated like a regular homicide under the criminal code.”