cwald wrote:...I personally am not interested in hearing the same arguments about Peterson and Bradford in this thread.
That is not what this thread about.
If folks have a beef and want to argue the details of that particular debacle....perhaps a new thread would be in order.
I'll take him up on that offer.
Now, I'm positive that Gerald Bradford is no dummy. Considering his position, he most likely knows DCP better than any of the rest of us. To that end, he had to know that DCP is an extremely popular fellow among faithful Mormons, at least among the ones who dabble in LDS studies on the 'net. He must have known that the FARMS Review (or whatever they were calling it that month) had plenty of faithful supporters who liked it as-is. Dr. Bradford also had to be aware of DCP's many connections to other members of the Mopologetic intelligentsia, of whom the names are many.
Therefore, he most likely would've been aware of the consequences of the coup just as much as any of the rest of us could've predicted. This tells me that there was no way he would touch that "hot potato" of his own accord. And even if he did, wouldn't any sane person have immediately backed off once the villagers started rioting?
This tells me that there was no way he would've mounted the coup were he not receiving marching orders from the Church Office Building (unless I'm more ignorant of the political dynamics of inner academia than even *I* thought I was). By extension, this also tells me that the rioting villagers also ought to be able to put 2 and 2 together and seek to ferret out the G.A. responsible rather than just place all blame squarely on the messenger. [Why would they think that A) seeing his own name dragged through the mud, and B) losing out on all that funding are worthwhile prices for Bradford to pay merely to move Daniel from editor-in-chief to consultant?]
MY POINT BEING, assuming I'm correct and Bradford was just the messenger, is there some sort of code of silence that obliges the bearer to remain mum about the source, at least in the LDS milieu? I know that if *I* was told to handle such a hot potato, I would immediately name the source in order to prevent my own hands from being burned. Why did Bradford feel obligated to make it look like it was his own idea?
OR, ON THE OTHER HAND, maybe you disagree with me and are convinced that Bradford acted of his own accord. In that case, do you think Dr. Bradford is merely blithely ignorant of the fact that his good name is being dragged through the mud all over the Internet, and that's why he hasn't backtracked on his decision?
(The "conspiracy theory" in the thread title is this: The fact that Bradford would endure such fallout without backing down must mean that he's acting on higher orders.)
