KYLE SMITH: From Watergate to whinegate: The Washington Post is a hot mess.

The Washington Post, June 1972: Two dogged reporters patiently dig into the details of a strange burglary at Democratic Party headquarters, diligently assemble facts, cultivate sources and put together a package of revelations that will lead to the first presidential resignation in history.

The Washington Post, exactly half a century later: Two Mean Girl basket cases spend an entire weekend crazily lurching around spitting inane accusations at their colleagues for microaggressing them. The more people laugh, the louder they cry, “I’m being endangered!”

How institutions change. The 145-year-old paper was once personified by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: “Woodstein.” This weekend the WaPo’s reputation was effectively redefined by MezRenz: Felicia Sonmez and Taylor Lorenz, each of whom brought shame on the paper over nothing.

The proximate cause of this spastic overreaction was a joke, retweeted by WaPo reporter Dave Weigel, that suggested all women are either bisexual or bipolar. This kind of “Bitches be craaaaazy!” joke died out in the ’80s, and Weigel shouldn’t have retweeted it, but Sonmez clearly was trying to get Weigel fired or severely punished when she re-tweeted Weigel’s retweet with a sarcastic note that it was “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” Weigel was already being corrected internally, so there was no need to take this public on Twitter, and he shortly deleted and apologized. That should have been the end of it.

And the hits just keep on coming! The Washington Post suspends reporter David Weigel over sexist retweet.

As Saagar Enjeti tweets, “Just so we’re all clear: Taylor Lorenz can literally lie and violate basic standards and gets no punishment. Felicia can leak her bosses emails, violate company policy and harass her coworkers and is good to go. Dave Weigel shitposts and he’s suspended w/o pay for a month.”