Robert J. O’Neill, the Navy Seal who fired the shots that ended Osama Bin Laden’s life, tweeted a photo of himself on an airplane without a mask, captioned “I’m not a p*ssy.”
The tweet garnered some controversy from users, but it wasn’t until NYT’s Editor Dan Saltzein stepped in, that the tweet went viral.
Without checking the identity of the user who tweeted the original photo, Saltzein retweeted O’Neill and wrote “I don’t know this guy but: counterpoint, you might just be [a p*ssy] because you’re not willing to sacrifice and be a little uncomfortable for your fellow humans (including the marine behind you)!”, this was referring to a man behind O’Neill on the plane who was wearing a USMC hat.
Saltzein’s tweet of course spurred on even more controversy.
How can he tell a Navy Seal who went on a mission against a known terrorist in the Middle East, that he wasn’t willing to “sacrifice and be a little uncomfortable”?
Twitter users like Amber Athey and others took to Twitter to ridicule NYT Editor. Athay referred to Saltzein’s comments as “beyond parody” on one of her tweets:
Not long after Saltzein published his tweet, and faced ridicule, he deleted it and put out a new one. His new tweet again had O’Neill’s photograph on the plane, but this time Saltzein’s tweet read “I deleted a previous version of my tweet because I broke my own rule about name calling. So let me try again: I honor O’Neill for his sacrifices to his country and his heroism. It’s sad that he can’t extend the same for the safety of his fellow passengers.”
Twitter users again mocked Saltzein, with comments such as “Yes, the name-calling was the problematic part, not telling someone who literally killed Osama Bin Laden that he’s not willing to sacrifice. You nailed it.”
“A quick Google search would have made you not look foolish and from getting ratio’d as hard you’re about to get,” another user said.
Of course, Saltzein was not alone in getting heat. To a lesser degree, Robert O’Neill got criticized for not wearing his mask. O’Neill’s tweet disappeared shortly after, and he tweeted out that he actually was not the one who deleted the tweet, but that his wife did that for him. Many Twitter users criticized him for deleting the tweet and other for not wearing a mask.
O’Neill doubled down. In other tweets he wrote that “China told you to wear a mask. Look down… you’re wearing a mask. I’m not.”
He went on to say “Make no mistake.. this ‘pandemic’ was sent to you by China.”
Facing backlash from Twitter users, he wrote “I know more about biological warfare than most of you. We were trained. These dumb ass masks do nothing. Nothing.” And he then maintained “I’m not being rude, I’m just telling you facts.”
In another series of tweets he challenged his followers saying that we was not afraid of the mob, that it was time to act, and that he is taking planes and hugging people but that he will be alive next week:
He ended his string of tweets with this parting shot:
