- Messages
- 3,937
The bigger issue for 79 is that a good number of folks had previously figured out he was much more right-leaning than he claimed and he loudly denounced it every time it happened, including arguing back with others when they called him out for the right-lean that showed through in his posts, only to later proudly declare his bias once he retired.Your case I think was a bit unusual. Overnight you went from a known public figure with a job which required you to maintain a more or less neutral stance on any political topic... to a pretty hard right leaning person (by board standards).
You I think relished in it a bit, as I'm sure you'd had to bite your tongue a thousand times prior. But the board had no idea how much your true opinions varied from your public persona, so it seemed to posters here like you'd had some sort of sudden personality shift. You also went from somebody who stayed out of almost every fight... to somebody who enjoyed punching back in every fight.
I always thought the board reacted poorly to your retirement... but I also think you enjoyed having the muzzle suddenly removed so you could bite back.
The board's reaction to his post-retirement persona was built through a whole lot of denial and performative outrage on his part during the decade plus that he spent denying the partisan-lean that he clearly had.