On Monday night, ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper offered what appears to be an unsolicited explanation as to why he doesn’t follow WaPo‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gene Weingarten on Twitter. It was one of those compliments hidden within a compliment festering within an insult type of thing.

Tapper’s tweet at Weingarten from last night at 9:14 p.m. has strangely been scrubbed from his feed, but here it is: “@geneweingarten big fan, but your icon keeps me from following. i have a dog, 2 cats, and 2 kids under 5. yknow? g’nug.”

It’s tough to imagine what prompted this from Tapper as remarks from both their feeds don’t offer a sense of what led to the final decision. But on Aug. 11, Weingarten said, “Follower surge explained. Good news: Mashable recommended me. Bad news: As ‘inspirational.’ The pressure is on. Uh, God is love. Poop often.” Was it “poop often” that got to Tapper?

No doubt Tapper is sending Weingarten a strong message: He is not taking his poopy avatar lying down. And who can blame the newsman from not wanting Walter (his cat) or Winston (his dog) from getting all psychologically damaged and entangled by a picture of feces. After all, they’re on Twitter, too. Stare at that stuff long enough and your eyes could turn to shit.

In Weingarten’s defense, he has tried to change his avatar, but things get ugly, there’s an uproar and he’s forced to bring it back or risk upsetting the masses.