In a world of blogging and social media, there are plenty of traps for the unwary corporate employee (as I know from experience). But for some events, the only appropriate responses are so obvious that even the unwary need not worry about being trapped.

The Las Vegas shooting is an example. At this juncture, one either says nothing or expresses sympathy for the victims. If the need to score a cheap political point is overwhelming, one can bring up gun control.

Yet, Hayley Geftman-Gold, a top lawyer for CBS, managed to step in it. Geftman-Gold, a vice president and senior counsel for the network, wrote on Facebook that she was “not even sympathetic” to those killed or wounded during the Vegas massacre because “country music fans often are Republican.”

This was her entry:

If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that the Repugs will ever do the right thing. I’m actually not even sympathetic b/c country music fans are often Republican gun toters.

CBS promptly fired her. It said she had violated the company’s standards by expressing deeply unacceptable views.

Ms. Geftman-Gold is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. Even that pedigree, while perhaps helpful in understanding how she developed her lack of sympathy for the victims, fails to explain the stupidity behind her decision to express it.

Mr. Mirengoff may be contacted at www.powerlineblog.com