Daily Caller, Buzzfeed Writers Hysterically Spar in ‘Battle of the Assholes’ on Twitter

J.D. DurkinJul 1st, 2016, 4:30 pm
 

Screen Shot 2016-07-01 at 4.25.12 PMWe will all remember where we were as the 2016 Battle of the Assholes officially broke out on Twitter, just hours before the start of the July 4th weekend.

It began when Betsy Rothstein, who covers media and gossip for the right-leaning Daily Caller, offered her thoughts on the recent news that IBT Media had laid off 32 people in cuts this week. As a variety of senior editors and reporters were cut, Rothstein offered her “condolences” to all, except for IBT’s Brendan James:

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s one “asshole” and one “prick” in nine minutes fired at James’ way, who was a staff writer at IBT following a tenure at TPM and Yahoo! News.

Political media Twitter’s white horse — the indefatigable Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed — hopped in to defend James and swipe right back at Rothstein himself. To view the full blow-by-blow exchange, take a look at Oliver Darcy‘s screengrab that pretty much reveals how it all transpired:

A brief transcript of the Battle of the Assholes is as follows:

KACZYNSKI: to be fair, you are also an asshole…

ROTHSTEIN: haha…hilarious coming from you.

KACZYNSKI: Do you disagree you are an asshole?

ROTHSTEIN: Oh, you’re actually speaking to me? Actually I think you are the king of assholes today.

KACZYNSKI: okay, I don’t disagree. But do you disagree you are an asshole?

ROTHSTEIN: Why are you speaking to me? Why does this matter? I’m glad we agree that you’re an asshole.

KACZYNSKI: I’m just curious. Humor me. Do you think you’re an asshole?

ROTHSTEIN: Why would I “humor” you? We don’t know each other. I don’t owe you anything.

KACZYNSKI: it’s really a yes or no question.

ROTHSTEIN: I don’t have to entertain your weirdness Andrew. Again, glad we can agree you’re an asshole. I think we’re bonding over it.

KACZYNSKI: tacit admission.

ROTHSTEIN: Not so much. Maybe you have a reading comprehension problem. Still, at least we can agree that you’re an asshole.

But there were other casualties in the 2016 Battle of the Assholes as well. Check out how Rothstein responded to criticism from one Twitter user who accused the staff of The Daily Caller of being “bowtiefuckers,” an obvious reference to DC‘s founder and Jon Stewart‘s Crossfire sparring pal Tucker Carlson:

“He can barely hold a real life conversation,” Rothstein even lobbied at Kaczynski at one point.

And when the dust settled and both sides of the Battle of the Assholes were sent out onto the battlefield to collect their dead and tend to their wounded, Rothstein simply offered the following closing thoughts:

It was a bloody battle; lots of assholes were thrown around, and lots of assholes were injured. It’s not the place of this writer to weigh in as to who “won” this battle, since for all I know, this is just one installment of the War of the Assholes. Time will tell how this one plays out. Keep it locked here to Mediaite for the latest developments in the newest, silliest, and strangest beef at the intersection of politics and media.

Happy Independence Day, assholes.

—
J.D. Durkin (@jiveDurkey) is an editorial producer and columnist at Mediaite. He covered the 2016 Battle of the Assholes and lived to write about it.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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