Written by: Beck

Alert reader Phil pointed me to a story today that I feel the need to shine some light on (Jonah Goldberg has already blogged on this here, here, and here). The long and the short of it is that a student from UMass (an institution for which I bear great hatred) wrote an op-ed in some liberal rag saying that dead war hero Pat Tillman was an idiot.

Gonzalez writes that Tillman was a "Rambo" who probably acted out of "nationalist patriotic fantasies." In his own neighborhood in Puerto Rico, according to Gonzalez, Tillman would not have been considered a hero, but a "pendejo," or idiot.

Phil, in his email, put it best I believe:

My Spanish may be a little rusty, however I'm pretty sure the definition of a pendejo is a person who thinks they can infer a person's character from a couple of pictures on CNN and a 20 year old B movie. Of course, it is true the only way to truly show your patriotism in a just manner is to strap a flag to the hood of your Datsun as you drive around giving people the finger as you point to your Jesus fish.

I don't really get that last part, but it seems really angry, so it's right up my alley. The worst bit is that they've defended their decision to publish such inane drivel on First Amendment grounds. You always know that any time a member of the press starts shouting about their rights, it's a raging fucktard trying to defend a bit of bad journalism. The First Amendment guarantees the right to a free press. No one is saying that the Daily Collegian shouldn't be allowed to publish moronic tripe, people are saying that the Daily Collegian should get their heads out of their asses and not publish moronic tripe in the first place. You're called editors for a reason.

Update: Jeff G has a few words for Mr. Gonzalez.