Tim Tyson & Hunt case comments: my responses

Folks, I want to respond on the main page to some or all parts of comments made on the thread of Tim Tyson's charges and the Hunt case.

Reader comments are in italics; mine are in plain

Here goes - - -

Anon said:

Good post and message, John.

Thanks for the nice words.

I hope you and others keep Tyson's feet to the fire on this issue as we go forward. His film on his book is pretty ridiculous in light of how he treated the Duke students.

I agree. We need to keep his feet to the fire.

Tyson’s doing great disservices to the players and their families, to Duke and the broader community by refusing to acknowledge and apologize for the great harm done because of the broadcasting of his false statements on the radio and in the N&O.

Tyson’s helping keep many people in denial; and he’s helping sustain the ongoing cover-up.

We won’t be able to set things as right as they ought to be at Duke and in Durham and North Carolina until we tear the lid off the cover-up.Tyson is helping to prevent that.

I view Tyson as a lost soul who years ago might have had pure motives, but now it's clear that he is as dishonest as they come, and he knows he can get by with it most of the time.

His responses to Zane’s questions and then his letter on the thread are examples of Tyson operating with a mind set in which he can “get by with it most of the time.” But he didn't this time.

Have you ever seen a professor make so many mistakes in so short a period which were then identified and refuted in so short a time?

If Tyson has much capacity for self-reflection as opposed to self-absorption, he must have realized pretty quickly he’d set himself up to look the fool.

That could explain why he didn’t come back on the thread, acknowledge his errors and thank those who’d pointed them out.

John, I'd be interested in knowing if Peder's email to you was before Tyson replied on his blog or after.

You can see that he used the same issue of the Hunt case as some kind of excuse.

Did he do that before Tyson did the same thing? They seem to be coming from the same playbook.

In this case at least, Anon., you’re a very discerning reader. Tyson’s letter, in which he made himself look so foolish and petty on other matters, and at best grossly misinformed on the Hunt case and very possibly libeling the prosecution, appeared after Zane had sent me the two emails.

When responding to Zane as regards his comments about Tyson, I tried to go easy and not hammer Zane with what Tyson had written.

Tyson's foolish, false, and reckless statements cut the legs out from under the case Zane was making for him; and exposed Tyson not as a race healer, but as a racist and self-promoter which are the points I was making in my first post when I said Tyson’s no more a race healer than David Duke or Houston Baker; and that his self-promotion skills but him in a category with John Edwards and Al Sharpton.

It looks like the N&O will go to any length to make Tyson look good and try to make excuses for him.

Indeed.

I think it is time to say auPederZane to Timmy Tyson and his cerebral self stimulations about "rich privileged white boys" raping black hookers!

He is not worth the intellect involved

I agree somewhat. I meant More on Tim Tyson's charges and the Hunt case to be the completion of my response to Zane, after which he was welcome to respond.

But I’ve not heard back from him.

Regardless, I do plan in the next few days to do at least one more Tyson post. It will attempt to sum all that’s happened as a result of reader response to the initial N&O/Zane puff-piece profile on May 18.

BTW – A big hat tip to you, Danvers, for following JinC from South Africa. Every time I hear from you I think of Churchill and his experiences there.

Now taking my cue from you, I end this post with friendly words for all:

auf Wiedersehen