“I don’t mind that Ms Rothman send a snarky response to my message, but she did not take the effort to respond to my legitimate question.”

Meet Thaddeus Vannice of Cary, N.C., who apparently has a lot of time on his hands. I recently got to be the beneficiary of his advice. Lucky me. He even tried to get me fired last week.

The story that enraged him concerned the Department of Justice coordinating with Media Matters to attack a reporter, in this case, Matthew Boyle of Breitbart News.  The piece published at 12:24 a.m. on Sept. 18.

At 6:51 a.m. on Sept. 18 Vannice reached out to me:

“I think this piece contained an important story, however, it is not clear. E.g., what were the dates of the DC’s FOI requests? You should work on your grammar and sentence structure. I don’t like to be tortured while reading a topic of interest, this was torturous! Don’t you have copy editors?”

ME: “Thanks for your lovely feedback. Maybe you could rewrite it for me to show me how you would’ve done this.”

HIM: “IF DC is satisfied, who cares?”

HIM: “PS you seem to prove as true, the concern about the collapse of postsecondary education.”

ME: “I am extremely concerned about the collapse of post-secondary education, Thaddeus. But more concerned with your views about my story. (Just joking. But can you explain what grammar issues you think are in there? Always open to self-improvement.)”

HIM: E.g. …attack him, lawmakers, and other members of the media.   “Other” implies lawmakers are members of media.  I learned this in eighth grade! Please do not ask me for a second example, I am using my cheapy tablet and it won’t allow copy and paste on your piece.
I am also curious about the chronology of events, but I am not going back to the article BTW did you just receive some other criticism?  I referred the errors  to TC.  We’ll see if he cares.

ME: No! I received no other critiques. I’m sure Tucker will enjoy reading your complaints. I’m glad your eighth grade schooling was exemplary. Maybe I need to sign up for some remedial classes. Thank you for encouraging me on this front Thad. I may disagree with you about that sentence you brought up. As you can see below, Boyle IS a member of the media…so that’s what I was getting at in that sentence. I suppose I could put “other members of the media” before “lawmakers.” Maybe that would calm you.

At 10:40 a.m., Mr. Vannice wrote my editor, Tucker Carlson:

Subject line: Editors needed

Tucker,

I have enjoyed your commentary over the years specially your most recent appearances on Red Eye! That is how I know that you’re in an editorial position at the DC.

If you read and subsequently OK’d the DOJ piece by Betsy Rothstein, I am gravely concerned for; 1. either I losing my mind or 2. your editors are slipping. I don’t mind that Ms Rothman send a snarky response to my message, but she did not take the effort to respond to my legitimate question. The chronology of events in her piece are vague at best. I am very interested in malfeasance, and nonfeasance, at DOJ. I hope someone does a follow-up to completely explain the story.

BTW if Ms. Rothstein uncovered the story, kudos to her and to DC for publishing.

I was a Math major, but that didn’t keep me from studying grammar, syntax, usage, or logic.

T Vannice

Cary, NC

Let’s examine. First off, Mr. Vannice appears to have grammar issues of his own. For instance, Ms needs a period. And my name, while close to “Rothman,” is not that. Also: he doesn’t mind that I “send” him a snarky response? Mr. Vance, even you must know that makes no grammatical sense. But as you were rushing to take my scalp, I’ll let it pass.

Carlson wrote back to Vance, saying, “Thanks for your email. You raise some important issues that I can no longer ignore. I have fired Betsy Rothstein.”