Reporter Joe Williams, suspended from Politico after a hit piece by Breitbart.com’s John Nolte, is now leaving his job: Joe Williams to Leave POLITICO.

As we noted at the time, the Breitbart operative who authored the hit piece on Williams, John Nolte, is himself a raving lunatic who often calls for his political enemies to be “murdered.” For example:

Teachers who take kids to protests without parents’ permission should be murdered.

— John Nolte(@NolteNC) November 5, 2011

It’s absurd that a good reporter like Williams is losing his job because of a deliberate attack by a right wing nutjob with no standards of decency. Politico should be ashamed of their response to this trumped up fake controversy.

The now-accepted version of Williams’ remarks is that he claimed Romney is “only comfortable around white people,” and that’s simply a distorted version of what he really said. The exact quote:

Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings, why he can’t relate to people other than that. But when he comes on “ Fox & Friends,” they are like him, they’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company, so it really is a very stark contrast, I think, and a problem that he has not been able to solve to date, and he’s going to have to network harder if he’s going to try to compete.

He said the people on Fox & Friends were white, which is undeniably true, and that was one of the things that made Romney feel comfortable. He did not say or imply that Romney is only comfortable with white people.

If you accept that interpretation, you’re letting John Nolte and Breitbart.com do your thinking for you.