I agree. Here are comments I made on April 12; let me know if you find them to be knee-jerky. One admission of knee-jerkiness: I did assume that Taki Soma was telling the truth as she saw it.

I am now making a second assumption that Charles Brownstein is telling the truth as he sees it. In his statement, he says “I feigned to lift up her shirt.” That alone is inexcusably wrong; can anyone sitting comfortably at their computer honestly tell Taki Soma that she should have interpreted his actions as only feigning?

And I’m saying that I think, whatever happened, Brownstein has presented himself better than Bourgeois has. She made factually incorrect statements that riled up a lot of people and directly hurt the uninvolved.

Since Brownstein’s “stupid, drunken prank” (his words), where he directly hurt another person, yes (I’m again assuming his statement is truthful) he seems to have presented himself well.

I disagreed with John’s statement that “the biggest blame should be directed at [Bourgeois],” if his thinking included Brownstein’s initial act.

Complaints can be made about Bourgeois without comparing her actions, in total, to Brownstein’s, in total.

I haven’t yet seen an acknowledgement of that or an apology from her for that irresponsibility.

For the indirect harm done to an innocent man, I’d like to see an apology as well.

If Brownstein should lose his job, should she continue in hers?

I believe Brownstein should face some measure of punishment or penance (does he disagree?). I didn’t say he should lose his job, nor that he shouldn’t. If he and Soma cannot agree on such punishment, then it is for the law to decide. CBLDF was correct to conduct a third-party investigation.

If Bourgeois is to be penalized for mistakes made, it should be based on what she did, not in comparison to any penalty given to Brownstein.

As I said, I fear that this is going to hurt both CBLDF and FoL. It already has good people arguing with each other. :-(
I hope I’ve been able to clarify my position. I don’t think you and I are in much disagreement, Johanna.

It depends on what people are “more to blame” for. We don’t know enough about what happened at Mid Ohio to make an informed decision (not that that stops anyone, of course, myself included). What we can, I think, be comfortable in putting blame on is how the issue has been discussed, and the tone for that has been set by Bourgeois, for better or for worse.

I think both Buzzscope and FoL would be better off without Bourgeois as a spokesperson, but it’s not my place to say that she should be removed from either position. Throughout this all, she and others accused some who have criticised her columns or the FoL fund of being heartless or of having some kind of agenda (and, honestly, in a few cases, that’s probably not too far off the mark). While I don’t doubt for a minute that she thought she was doing the right thing and handling everything perfectly well, “the road to hell” and all of that.

Sorry, black humor. I’m saying that putting a name to both sides of the situation made a lot of people reconsider some knee-jerking that was going on. And I’m saying that I think, whatever happened, Brownstein has presented himself better than Bourgeois has. She made factually incorrect statements that riled up a lot of people and directly hurt the uninvolved. I haven’t yet seen an acknowledgement of that or an apology from her for that irresponsibility. (If I’ve missed it, please let me know.) If Brownstein should lose his job, should she continue in hers?

I fear that this is going to hurt both CBLDF and FoL. :-(

But I do agree that the biggest blame should be directed at the Buzzscope columnist(s) who handled this whole matter so ineptly.