Flaming Asshole Award Reassigned

It turns out that Daniel Watts is the likely victim here and the flaming ass is the Associated Press. Daniel commented and emailed regarding his treatment by the press:

As I learned during the gubernatorial race, the media has a tendency to take everything I say out of context.

Some of the articles have misquoted me as saying that the video "is not a big deal."

It IS a big deal. Anyone dying in Iraq is a big deal. What the media blew out of proportion was the attempted showing of the Nick Berg video on Library Walk on Tuesday (by another student, not me); the video wasn't even shown, but the media hung out for 2 hours to interview the guy.

There are multiple reasons to show the video. The main one is that photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse have been plastered all over the newspapers and Internet, but the media have not gone to similar lengths to try to give the same attention to an even worse crime committed AGAINST Americans. The media's coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse is slanted; they will show graphic photos of prisoners being mauled, humiliated, etc. but they won't show even worse atrocities committed by the terrorists.

I'm sorry the story you read portrayed me unfairly. If I've learned anything it's that the media selectively choose what to include in their stories.

Sincerely,
Daniel Watts

Thusly it is that the Flaming Asshole Trophy is reclaimed from Daniel Watts and bestowed instead upon the Associated Press, long may their gasseous discharges burn.

We have a new holder of the Flaming Asshole award. Daniel Watts is a junior at the University of California, San Diego. He has recently been forbidden to broadcast the beheading of Nick Berg on campus television. He is not a flaming asshole because he wants to broadcast the video. He is a flaming asshole due to the reason that he wants to broadcast the video.

"I wanted to show the media is blowing it out of proportion," said Watts, who is host of [a] political talk show. "It's not that big of a deal. People show stuff this violent and horrible all the time."

The media is blowing it out of proportion? It got some mention for two or three days in national media. Since then I have barely seen mention of it, apart from verbal asides and some lead-ins to the overbearing coverage his anti-Bush father is getting.

Not that big a deal? You incredible little fuck. What is a bigger deal than five insane religious nuts sawing off a helpless prisoner's head?

People show stuff that horrible all the time? Bull fucking shit. There is nothing more horrible. Period. Nothing I have ever seen. Certainly nothing that is "shown all the time". This was REAL, you dipshit! A real live person was murdered in a horrible, horrible way. A human being, one of your countrymen. This was not a video game. It was not special effects. Nick Berg is not in Cannes waiting for an award for best victim in a snuff film. He was slain by the fucking Islamite bastards that you are abetting with your stinking moral equivalence.

Do me a favor, Daniel. Walk off of the campus where your coddled little self sits so comfortably. Head on over to Balboa and start talking about how the media is blowing the murder of Nick Berg all out of proportion. Head on over to the piers in Coronado and explain to those fishing gentlemen why the brutal slaying of an American by Muslim extremists is really no big deal. Wander down to TJ and let our neighbors to the south know that sawing off a person's head while they are alive is no more violent or horrible than things we see all the time.

No? Do your convictions stop at the gate then? I thought so and that makes you a coward and a worm in addition to being a flaming asshole.