Act I
On November 7th, 2015, Bradley Bethel posted a Tweet saying "UNC History Professor Jay Smith Wishes Plane Crash for Provost" with a link to a blog entry .
The issue to which he was referring was an email from Dr. Jay Smith to Mary Willingham in January 2014 in which Smith wrote with regard to UNC Provost James W. Dean's trip to Stanford: "Let's hope for a plane crash."
Act II
A few days later, on November 11th, 2015, InsideCarolina.com's Buck Sanders had Bradley Bethel on his podcast to provide an update on the status of Unverified: the Film. Early in the interview, Sanders set the stage with this comment:
"As far as, you know, my audience -- Inside Carolina's audience -- we want red meat. You know, we want you to take down Mary Willingham and Jay Smith and the N&O and we want you to just, you know, pile 'em all in a, you know, a parking lot like a bunch of books and pour gasoline on 'em and set fire to the entire group."Here it is in context of the full podcast, coming at the 5:10 mark.
Act III
On November 28th, Mary Willingham posted a blog entry on PaperClassInc.com mentioning Sander's comment:
"Whistleblowing is not for the meek. Just last week, Buck Sanders of Inside Carolina said that I, along with Jay Smith and the N&O, should be drenched in gasoline and lit on fire in a parking lot."
Act IV
On December 3rd, Bethel countered with a blog response of his own: "Mary Willingham's Misleading Accusation Against Buck Sanders."
Act V
Two days later, Bethel had unpublished his November 7th and December 3rd blog articles and posted "Moving Past Mary Willingham & Jay Smith."
Act VI
My comment on this melodrama:.
What's it called when you criticize a behavior, yet in so doing, engage in the very same behavior you were criticizing? I suppose it's a form of situational irony.
What's different about Jay Smith's "wish" that his Provost's plane crash from that of Buck Sanders' "wish" to see Mary Willingham burned in the parking lot?
Bethel would like us to believe that, while Sanders' was being obviously hyperbolic and non-literal, Smith's exaggerated statement was at least in some part a literal desire to see harm befall the Provost.
Seriously?
Bethel took umbrage with Smith's expression of frustration made in an email not intended for public viewing, yet giggled when Sanders' own frustration was publicly conveyed with a similarly hyperbolic statement. Thus, he's had to take great strides to rationalize the distinction between the two in order to avoid contradiction.
But in attempting to rationalize away that hypocrisy, he's unwittingly reinforced it.
In his December 3rd blog "Mary Willingham's Misleading Accusation Against Buck Sanders," he charges Willingham with taking Sanders statement "completely out of context," saying she failed to explain to her audience that it was not a literal threat.
But if you look back at Willingham's "Enough Already" blog, we see Bethel, himself, has misrepresented Willingham's words. Willingham was not taking Sanders' at his literal word, but was instead expressing dismay at the sort of vitriol a "whistleblower" has to deal with. No where in her blog does she communicate a fear of actual threat or insinuate that the Sanders' comment was anything but mean-spirited; which is very unlike Bethel who IS claiming Smith was wishing for actual physical harm.
Bethel misrepresented Jay Smith's flippant plane crash comment as being at least semi-literal, and he misrepresents Willingham's complaint as characterizing Sanders' as literal. Both are misrepresentations made by Bethel, and yet he's casting stones about "embellishing, fabricating, or misleading."
The lack of self-awareness and bend-over-backwards rationalization is stunning. It's almost as stunning as his loathsome attempt to introduce sordid and tabloid-worthy character issues into the discussion in order to discredit his antagonists, and then trying to justify it as appropriate, or even righteous.
InsideCarolina removed the audio from the podcast and Bethel has since unpublished his November 7th and December 3rd blog articles. He's now, at last, moving on past Mary Willingham and Jay Smith. Excellent! Maybe now we'll get somewhere.
