WASHINGTON – Nicholas "Michael" Thalasinos, one of 14 murder victims of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Mailik, at a San Bernardino, California, Christmas party last week, was described by friends "an awesome man of God," and a Christian "prayer warrior."

But on Saturday, New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi, using harsh invectives, blamed the victim for the terror attack by the ISIS loyalists, characterizing Thalasinos as "a hate-filled bigot" who wrote "NRA-loving, hate-filled screed on Facebook" and now is "inaccurately being eulogized as a kind and loving religious man" and who "died as the male equivalent of Pamela Geller."

In other words, he got what was coming to him.

Stasi even suggests the whole massacre was probably, at least in part, Thalasinos' fault.

"They were two hate-filled, bigoted municipal employees interacting in one department," she wrote. "Now 13 innocent people are dead in unspeakable carnage. One man spent his free time writing frightening, NRA-loving, hate-filled screeds on Facebook about the other's religion. The other man quietly stewed and brewed his bigotry, collecting the kind of arsenal that the Facebook poster would have envied. What they didn't realize is that except for their different religions they were in many ways similar men who even had the same job."

Stasi continues the comparisons – though she pointedly refuses to name either killer in her column, only the victim.

"One man, the Muslim, was a loser who had to travel all the way to Pakistan to get himself an email bride. (I refuse to add to their fame by using the killer and his murderous wife’s names.)," she wrote. "That wife radicalized him and fueled his hatred. The FBI is investigating her ties to al-Qaida and ISIS. Go to the Middle East, meet your new wife, meet some terror leaders, begin your wedded bliss back in the USA," she wrote, apparently chalking up Farook's Islamist bent to his wife.

"The other man, the victim, Nicholas Thalasinos, was a radical Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew, who also connected with his future wife online and had traveled across the country to meet her," she continued, not noticing, apparently, that Thalasinos was not a Jew – messianic or otherwise.

He was just a Greek-American gentile Christian believer who saw himself "grafted" into the House of Israel, much as the Apostle Paul explained in Acts 11.

"The killer, however, became half of an Islamic Bonnie & Clyde, while the other died as the male equivalent of Pamela Geller," she wrote, referring to the WND columnist, author and Jewish activist who is very much alive while facing death threats from Islamists for her work against the effects of creeping Shariah and Islamization in the U.S.

"But the victim is also inaccurately being eulogized as a kind and loving religious man," Stasi continued. "Make no mistake, as disgusting and deservedly dead as the hate-filled fanatical Muslim killers were, Thalasinos was also a hate-filled bigot. Death can't change that. But in the U.S., we don't die for speaking our minds. Or we're not supposed to anyway."

Yet, the Daily News columnist saved most of her verbal venom for Thalasinos.

"Thalasinos was an anti-government, anti-Islam, pro-NRA, rabidly anti-Planned Parenthood kinda guy," she continued., suggesting Thalasinos should have been fired from his government job for displays of "public bigotry. Municipal workers have been fired for spewing and posting racial and sexual slurs."

The New York Daily News, besides employing Stasi as a featured columnist, was the paper whose headline the day after the massacre caught the eye of many. In response to news that Republican presidential candidates were praying for the victims of the attack, the tabloid blared, "God Isn’t Fixing This," with a sub-headline, “As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes."



It has been reported that co-workers Thalasinos and Farook, both restaurant inspectors, had a heated argument about Islam two weeks before the attack that killed 14 and wounded, many of them seriously, 21.

On the night before Thalasinos was killed, a man identified as "Med Ali Zarouk" threatened his life with an anti-Semitic rant: "You will never sucsseed [sic] to make a country for jews because you are criminals and cowards ... soon you'll get your ass kicked, you will die and never see israel as country believe me never."

Thalasinos’ widow, Jennifer, told the New York Post she considers her slain husband a martyr.

"He knew Syed. He worked with him and he never had anything bad to say about him," she said. "He knew he was Muslim, and with our faith, they may not necessarily have got along."

But Mrs. Thalasinos also said she believed Farook may have been radicalized "behind the scenes" in the years before last Wednesday's mass shooting but wasn't showing "that part of himself" at work. If Farook had shown his true colors, "my husband would have had something to say," she said.

As for reports that Farook argued with an unidentified co-worker at an office holiday party moments before returning with his wife and weapons, Mrs. Thalasinos said that worker could well have been her husband.

"I’m sure everybody has seen his Facebook page. He's very outspoken about Islamic terrorism and how he feels about politics in the state of the country," Jennifer explained. "So I'm sure he probably had plenty to say to him."

The year 2013 was a turning point for both Farook and Thalasinos. That year, Farook went on a hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is required of all Muslims. The same same year, the widow said, Nicholas became a "born again" Christian devoting himself to Jesus, whom he referred to by His Hebrew name, Yeshua.

"He wanted to serve the Lord and bring more people to the Lord,' Mrs. Thalasinos said.

Thalasinos was Rush Limbaugh dittohead and posted on Facebook that he "studied conservatism at Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies."

A GoFundMme campaign has been launched as a memorial to Nicholas Thalasinos by friends who wrote, "We are hoping that we can raise funds to help Jenn with funeral and associated costs and to help her get back on her feet once she has come to grips with this tragedy."

In three days, it had raised nearly $16,000. All proceeds go to his widow.