Editor Thomas Mitchell of the Las Vegas Review-Journal claims he was joking when he penned a column a few day ago saying women should lose the right to vote.

" ... we must repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes, the one granting suffrage to women. Because? Well, women are biased," Mitchell wrote in a column Friday.

He went on to argue that women should not be allowed to vote because they were supporting incumbent Nevada senator Harry Reid in a recent poll: “Men favored the attractive former beauty queen Sue Lowden over the graying Harry Reid by 22 points, while women shunned their gender mate, choosing Reid by a 2-point margin. Which proves women favor Democrats.”

Is he living in this century? Apparently not. Remember, this is an editor of the newsroom, not some editorial page scribe. He oversees news coverage for the entire newspaper, the largest in Nevada.

As expected, this did not sit well with many local and national obsevers, according to The Raw Story, which collected reactions to the offensive column. “If there's a clever insight here, it's hiding well,” wrote Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly. “Remember, this guy runs a major newspaper. The mind reels.”

Mitchell penned a follow-up piece on Saturday claiming the whole thing was a joke: “All I did was pen a bit of light extemporanea for this blog on the statistically demonstrable differences between the sexes when it comes to matters political. OK, I might've thrown a little chum in the water by flippantly suggesting the repeal of the 19th Amendment, the one granting suffrage to women. It was just a bit of free hyperbole."

This is also the same newspaper that has Publisher Sherman Frederick at the helm, a sometimes columnist and blogger who has been found to have offered incorrect facts and false accusations, according to recent Media Matters research.

It seems Mitchell is carrying on the tradition of classless behavior.