He does have an agenda, whether or not one agrees with it. I'm pointing out that he seems to be an idealogue, operating in the service of that larger agenda. It is what led to that op-ed in BMJ, and I strongly suspect that it led to his wife's e-mail and him standing in a quad surrounded by agitated and screeching students. He went there for the express purpose of making his point. In light of that, of course he was calm-- the wilder the undergrads got, the better his point is made, after all. He does understand how to work the media to make a point.
Interesting point. However, one may say that the students had a point too -- because they did. Maybe he has a larger, well-developed point, but most people, most of the time they're speaking, have a point to make of some sort. After all, why would one say anything without first having a goal for their speech?
However, I think that a lot of this gets way overblown because people bring a lot of things into these sorts of conversations. Obviously, this is hard to eliminate -- but I think many times this becomes a political clash when perhaps that only inflates and dilutes the matters at hand.
