J. B. Handley and the unkept promise

UPDATE 05/17/11 -  There has been an update to this story. Go here to read the latest development.

Credibility is everything, especially if you are at the head of an organization that purports to uncover wrongdoings on the part of the government, doctors, scientists, nurses, pharmacists, journalist, you, I, anyone and everyone in the pro-health community. Nothing undermines credibility more than lack of integrity, lack of an ability to keep one’s word. That ability is what distinguishes the man from the child, the reasonable from the unreasonable, the credible from the  untrustworthy. In some cultures, there’s nothing that is associated more with manliness than one’s ability to keep one’s word, and nothing that makes one less of a man than failing to keep a promise.

J.B. Handley made a public promise, and so far he’s failed to keep that promise. Handley may be a loud, screaming bully who’s used to get his way, but at least in this one man’s book he’s not a real man. In this man’s book Handley is untrustworthy. To borrow a term from accounting, to me he has become “immaterial”.

The Promise Made

See, a while ago Handley was really upset with a blogger who went by the pseudonym Sullivan. Handley thought he’d figured out who Sullivan was; he thought Sullivan was Dr. Paul Offit’s wife, Bonnie Offit. Hapocrates Speaks has the details but in a nutshell Handley issued the following challenge to Bonnie Offit (emphasis added)t:

Bonnie Offit, or Sullivan for that matter, I have a simple offer:

If you can produce a dad with a child with autism with a remarkable grasp of the medical and scientific literature who blogs under the name Sullivan, a man who has an inordinate grasp of the details of your husband’s patents, lawsuits, published studies, and web habits, I will make sure that the pauloffit.com website is given to you and your husband for good.

In fact, if you can produce this father, I promise to never, ever publicly write about or utter the name “Paul Offit” again.

The promise is simple: the moment Handley is shown that he is wrong, that the blogger known as Sullivan is not Bonnie Offit, he will give up the domain www.pauloffit.com,  which he took out solely to try and discredit Dr. Offit, a personal attack pure and simple.

Be that as it may the story goes on.

Challenge Met

The blogger Sullivan blogs for  Left Brain/Right Brain. After Handley issued his challenge his identity was revealed on the same blog where he usually writes. The ball was back in Handley’s court. Sullivan was not Bonnie Offit. What would Handley do, having been shown wrong?

Perhaps he would be a man and keep his word?

Handley fails to act like a real man

J.B. Handley went pretty close to proving that at least he’s a man of his word. Oh so close.

5 months late, Matt Carey, a research staff member at Hitachi GST, with a PhD in physics from UCSD, has revealed himself to be the notorious blogger “Sullivan.”

In a previous post, I speculated that Sullivan was actually Bonnie Offit, wife of a not-to-be-mentioned vaccine millionaire. Mr. Carey’s personal outing of himself renders my speculation incorrect.

[...]

I’m also pleased to see you now blogging in your own name, as all AoA writers and parents do. I think it’s a simple way to demonstrate courage, conviction, and integrity in the things you write.

‘Nuff said, in the world I live in, a deal’s a deal, even if you took five months to get here. Just email me, plenty on the dark side know how to find me, and we can work out the details.

Handley posted this at the Age of Autism blog on 04/29/11. A full two weeks has elapsed since then. You’d think that at this point the matter has been settled, that the domain pauloffit.com has been turned over to Dr. Offit. You’d be wrong. As Hapocrates Speaks details, initially all content was erased, signaling a preparation to actually turn over the domain. But then, new content appeared, again attacking Dr. Offit. This is what you’ll find there as of 05/12/11.

Conclusion

J.B. Handley failed to keep his word. He went back on his promise. He showed us that he has no credibility, or decency, as a human being, and as a man. His behaviour is childish and lacking integrity. Not that any of that will bother AoA fans anyway.

If he cannot be trusted with something as simple and straightforward as keeping the promise that he made, how can he be trusted with anything else?