Any controller or FAA officials that deny landing in an emergency are putting their ass on the line. Saying safety comes second, business comes first.
  Some good comments at first, but how those turn into insulting moronic political comments so fast has always miffed me?
In the end though.. the pilot did say he thought he could make the second approach after some time had passed.

There's one sure fire way to get a controllers attention. The phrase "I'm declaring an emergency" is one of those which has crept in to the conversational tone of some aircraft - ATC communications.

Three words/phrases at the beginning of the RT transmission are very helpful in setting the tone of the exchange, and exerting who needs priority and who should be arranging their life and work around the other:

"Mayday Mayday Mayday" or " Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan".

Having used the former 3 times in the past, it works. "I'm declaring an emergency" sometimes can fail to get the point across.

In this case, pilot and approach controller need to be far more assertive and put the tower controller back in his box. The aeroplane wants to land on 17C, so all other traffic should be sequenced to allow it.