[bambax]

> Barstool is referenced more than once in the piece

Yes, it's said to be part of the "anti-PC press": The anti-P.C. press certainly delights in titillating its audience, but it always, unfailingly, endorses a completely servile relationship to authority.

As you say, the actual point of the article isn't even about rudeness, it's about standing up to power, or not.

[Hitton]

It's not even about standing up to power, it's about standing up to author's ideological enemies.