The Ray Rice Debacle

[The Mort Report]

Still nothing on the Mueller investigation or did I miss it?  Swept under the rug?

 

[Reverend]

This is going to be one GIANT disservice to victims of DV everywhere.

Janay Rice is on record with RDPN's Jemelle Hill that she has never seen domestic abuse.

In possibly related news, she is also on record as saying she doesn't remember the incident in the elevator and has not watched the tape.

 

[SeoulSoxFan]

Janay Rice is on record with RDPN's Jemelle Hill that she has never seen domestic abuse.

To be fair, I don't think anyone could have seen that left hook coming.

 

[MarcSullivaFan]

This is definitely worth the read.

http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/story?storyId=11913473&src=desktop&rand=ref~%7B%22ref%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FYEqfUueael%22%7D

 

[Jnai]

Hold on. They named the kid Rayven???

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Ray Rice was pretty terrible in 2013, and hasn't played at all this year,

The Ravens' offensive line was pretty terrible in 2013; that probably has something to do with it. I suspect that even Rice would have run for 1000 yards this season behind their new OL.

As for Janay's letter, I guess I'll take it at face value, but having worked in the field for a while, it is extremely unusual for a man's first physical assault on his partner to be a left hook that leaves her unconscious.

Of course the whole sequence of events - three hour silent car ride down, not remembering what they were arguing about, leading to him spitting on her, her slapping him, her slapping him again, and the final hook - seems like a poor cliff notes version of the story.

And her saying that the relationship got "better" after the incident - well, doesn't it always? He's going to be on his best behavior, at least for the time being.

It's all pretty sad.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Still nothing on the Mueller investigation or did I miss it?  Swept under the rug?

Of course. It stunk of nothing but PR until the dust cleared and people moved on to the next headline. Pretty smooth move by Goodell.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Here's the arbitrator's decision.
 
In an absolutely unsurprising development, the arbitrator found the Rices, Ozzie Newsome, and NFLPA counsel Heather McPhee to have more credibility than the NFL's Goodell, Birch, and Manara.

 

[GeorgeCostanza]

On AFC running backs coach opinion:

"He's going to have to get into shape, clearly because he hasn't been hitting this year."

Phenomenal choice of words

 

[soxhop411]

The NFL has some explaining to do.....
REPORT: Emails indicate NFL never contacted police about Rice tape. @DVNJr reports. http://t.co/PJK4jLV7Ue


Via OTL

 

[GeorgeCostanza]

Perhaps because they already had it. Oh what a tangled web the ginger hammer weaves.

 

[GeorgeCostanza]

That was a good read. He may not be a lawyer but he could certainly be a politician. What a dick.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Lovely:

 

Kessler: "... you said, 'we asked for it on several occasions according to our security department. We went through it, we asked for it on several occasions over the spring, all the way through June.' You see that statement? Did you make a comment like that?"
 
Goodell: "Yes, I remember that."
 
Kessler: "Did you ever learn before or after that that in fact no formal request was made for videos about your security department of the police department who had it is that in fact they never made such a formal request?"
 
Goodell: "[What] does a formal request mean?"
 
Kessler: "Are you aware that there [are] laws in the State of New Jersey where people can file formal requests for information from the police department?"
 
Goodell: "I'm not an attorney."
 

 

[Corsi]

Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet  1m1 minute ago
The Mueller Report is out: “We found no evidence that anyone at the NFL had or saw the in-elevator video before it was publicly shown.”
 
http://robertmuellerreport.com/

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

 
Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet  1m1 minute ago
The Mueller Report is out: “We found no evidence that anyone at the NFL had or saw the in-elevator video before it was publicly shown.”
 
http://robertmuellerreport.com/
 

 
Shocker.

 

[TomRicardo]

"Though we spent months dicking around hoping everyone would forget.  Hope nobody follows up."

 

[Joshv02]

It is impossible that you actually read the report before posting an opinion. Pretty much anyone who says that they have an opinion prior to tomorrow morning is full of shit.

 

[Silverdude2167]

NFL Vs. FIFA who can sweep an issue under the rug through a thorough "independent internal investigation".
 
Right now the NFL has the lead as the author has not come out disputed what has been reported, but releasing the full report so soon (assuming an un-redacted report) is an amateur move on the NFL's part.

 

[TomRicardo]

It is impossible that you actually read the report before posting an opinion. Pretty much anyone who says that they have an opinion prior to tomorrow morning is full of shit.

 
There are several portions that directly contradict what we know.  It just simply goes on on saying we found no forensic evidence.
 
Edit - Mueller basically calls the AP a liar and ignores the existence of the voicemail.  AP is going to rip this apart on principle.

 

[amarshal2]

Thanks for stopping by, Roger.

 
FWIW, my Yahoo pop up message said that the report was highly critical of the NFL.

 

[Ed Hillel]

 
There are several portions that directly contradict what we know.  It just simply goes on on saying we found no forensic evidence.
 
Edit - Mueller basically calls the AP a liar and ignores the existence of the voicemail.  AP is going to rip this apart on principle.

 
He does no such thing. He says that they reached out to AP and, as they expected, AP had no comment. He says also that they conducted forensic tests and found no evidence such a call occurred. He conclude that "they have no evidence" that the call occurred, not that it didn't. The ACPD also apparently basically refused to work with them for the report, which doesn't look great on them, given their insistence about what had/hadn't happened. Regardless, if AP/ACPD weren't going to aid in the investigation and forensic scrubs found no such evidence, Mueller had no choice but to reach the conclusion he did. It's not like he ignores the AP story in his report.
 
Indubitably, the NFL is not a paragon of virtue and well all know it has warts, but there are threads upon threads here where you can also find people shitting all over the media. It's not like the media has never reported false information, intentional or not. Not to mention that, from what I've read of the report so far, it's not all that complimentary to the NFL. It's certainly not a puff piece.
 
Not to mention that what's really the big issue here is that it shouldn't have taken seeing the video for the NFL to act. What I am quite confident Roger did lie about is that he wasn't clearly informed of what had happened in the elevator. He knew Rice clocked her, and it shouldn't have taken actually seeing it (or the public seeing it, more accurately) to punish Rice for more than he did. I still find the fact that Suggs is still playing in this league way more damning than anything to have come from this debacle. The league never really cared about any of this until he public saw this video. That's the problem.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Yeah it doesn't sound like he's holding the NFL blameless at all.
 

There's no evidence that anyone at the NFL saw or possessed a video showing Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée until it was made public, but the league should have known it needed to dig deeper into the incident, an external investigative report released Thursday concludes.
 

 

"We concluded there was substantial information about the incident -- even without the in-elevator video -- indicating the need for a more thorough investigation," Mueller said in his report. "The NFL should have done more with the information it had, and should have taken additional steps to obtain all available information about the February 15 incident."
 

 
Link

 

[Harry Hooper]

Yeah it doesn't sound like he's holding the NFL blameless at all.
 
 
 
Link

 
But Roger will just fold that into "I already said we didn't get it right, and have taken remedial steps." I doubt this report gives the NFL any turbulence.

 

[TomRicardo]

 
He does no such thing. He says that they reached out to AP and, as they expected, AP had no comment. He says also that they conducted forensic tests and found no evidence such a call occurred. He conclude that "they have no evidence" that the call occurred, not that it didn't. The ACPD also apparently basically refused to work with them for the report, which doesn't look great on them, given their insistence about what had/hadn't happened. Regardless, if AP/ACPD weren't going to aid in the investigation and forensic scrubs found no such evidence, Mueller had no choice but to reach the conclusion he did. It's not like he ignores the AP story in his report.
 
Indubitably, the NFL is not a paragon of virtue and well all know it has warts, but there are threads upon threads here where you can also find people shitting all over the media. It's not like the media has never reported false information, intentional or not. Not to mention that, from what I've read of the report so far, it's not all that complimentary to the NFL. It's certainly not a puff piece.
 
Not to mention that what's really the big issue here is that it shouldn't have taken seeing the video for the NFL to act. What I am quite confident Roger did lie about is that he wasn't clearly informed of what had happened in the elevator. He knew Rice clocked her, and it shouldn't have taken actually seeing it (or the public seeing it, more accurately) to punish Rice for more than he did. I still find the fact that Suggs is still playing in this league way more damning than anything to have come from this debacle. The league never really cared about any of this until he public saw this video. That's the problem.

 
Why would the AP give out an anonymous source to someone publishing a public report?
 
Also the NFL lied.  First they said "We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator.That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today."  Both the AP and Mueller refute that.  Mueller's seems more innocuous being that they didn't try hard enough.
 
Goodell is liar and he will skate.  

 

[Rustjive]

Reading the whole report will be a bigger waste of time

I assume you haven't read it then. I did read at least the methods they used in investigation and I'm not really sure what more they could've done - they checked every number that the NFL office called on that date and around that date, they asked every employee about it, they spoke to nearly every number that was called personally, the AP didn't cooperate, the ACPD didn't cooperate, they set up an anonymous tip line for the NFL employees, they collected 3 million documents from the NFL, they collected every video on the computers and the network and did analysis, they analyzed all the records of any mail that came in that could have been the video, etc.

 

[Ed Hillel]

Why would the AP give out an anonymous source to someone publishing a public report?

 
They wouldn't, but it's also consistent with Mueller saying he was provided no evidence that any such call occurred, especially if an independent company conducted a forensics scrub/phone call records search and found nothing.
 

Also the NFL lied. First they said "We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator.That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today." Both the AP and Mueller refute that. Mueller's seems more innocuous being that they didn't try hard enough.

 
I haven't read the report fully, but the part I saw said that the NFL didn't contact any of the officers involved, not that they didn't make a call to ACPD. Not saying it doesn't say what you are saying, I just haven't read it thoroughly at this point.

 

[glennhoffmania]

 
But Roger will just fold that into "I already said we didn't get it right, and have taken remedial steps." I doubt this report gives the NFL any turbulence.

 
Of course.  And Mara and Rooney have already said that he's the right guy to lead the league going forward.  It's all bullshit.  But the fact that the league didn't actually see the video before it was made public, which seems to be a key part of the report, is totally irrelevant.  Anyone with half a brain knew what happened in the elevator before the video came out.  I didn't expect anything more out of this report so this isn't a surprise, but it's really disappointing that such incompetence will go unpunished other than some chastising by Mueller.

 

[Rustjive]

I did read what they released today. And, quite frankly, they probably couldn't have done much more but that doesn't mean it was a fool proof investigation. Shit, the NFL could have destroyed a ton of incriminating evidence before Mueller's group was hired. We'll never know. All we do know is that Goodell remains completely full of shit about his story.

Right, I don't think the computer forensics or the interviews they did were foolproof, but I have a bit of trouble getting around the issue of the actual phone call. I don't see how the NFL could conceivably destroy their phone records unless it becomes a conspiracy where their phone operator destroyed the records for them. If there's no record of the phone call and the AP isn't going to help in any way, then...

 

[Ed Hillel]

Right, I don't think the computer forensics or the interviews they did were foolproof, but I have a bit of trouble getting around the issue of the actual phone call. I don't see how the NFL could conceivably destroy their phone records unless it becomes a conspiracy where their phone operator destroyed the records for them. If there's no record of the phone call and the AP isn't going to help in any way, then...

 
As far as I know, good forensics teams have the capability to recover information that has been deleted. I'm not positive if that was the case here, but the forensics may have been failry conclusive on the issue, as well, assuming that they had the capability, were handed the actualy computers from the office in place at the time of the issue in question, were thorough, and aren't part of an elaborate conspiracy.

 

[Kevin Youkulele]

Right, I don't think the computer forensics or the interviews they did were foolproof, but I have a bit of trouble getting around the issue of the actual phone call. I don't see how the NFL could conceivably destroy their phone records unless it becomes a conspiracy where their phone operator destroyed the records for them. If there's no record of the phone call and the AP isn't going to help in any way, then...

Under Occam's razor, isn't the simplest explanation that the call was not made through an NFL-owned phone?  The caller could have used a personal cell, among other things.  And then lied to Mueller's team about making the call, consistent with a desire to maintain anonymity.  Whistleblowers are often not treated well when they are discovered.

 

[soxhop411]

Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet  2m2 minutes ago
 
#Ravens: “The report reminds us all of the gravity of the consequences of intimate partner abuse and the lessons we must all learn

 

[Rustjive]

Under Occam's razor, isn't the simplest explanation that the call was not made through an NFL-owned phone?  The caller could have used a personal cell, among other things.  And then lied to Mueller's team about making the call, consistent with a desire to maintain anonymity.  Whistleblowers are often not treated well when they are discovered.

This is the call where the NFL called the source to confirm that they had received the video (where a female caller says "You're right. It's terrible.") The number from that voicemail according to the AP is the number of the league office.

With regard to whistleblowers, Mueller thought of that as well, so he had an anonymous tip line set up and informed all employees of it. He said they got no calls on it.

 

[Norm Siebern]

Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet  2m2 minutes ago
 
#Ravens: “The report reminds us all of the gravity of the consequences of intimate partner abuse and the lessons we must all learn

Talk about skating. The Ravens covered up their whole involvement in this. Rice was the only Raven who was truthful, he said he reported it to te team, fully and honestly, and immediately. What did they do with that information? This report my or may not exonerate the NFL front offices, but what about the Ravens and their attempt (successful) to give as little information as possible to the NFL so tat the original punishment for Rice would be lenient? (Also successful). I have yet to see any serious investigation from inquisitors over what the Ravens knew, when did they know it, and what did they do about it.

Nothing. What an odious, insidious franchise. From the President all the way to the payers to the director of security.

 

[pappymojo]

Talk about skating. The Ravens covered up their whole involvement in this. Rice was the only Raven who was truthful, he said he reported it to te team, fully and honestly, and immediately. What did they do with that information? This report my or may not exonerate the NFL front offices, but what about the Ravens and their attempt (successful) to give as little information as possible to the NFL so tat the original punishment for Rice would be lenient? (Also successful). I have yet to see any serious investigation from inquisitors over what the Ravens knew, when did they know it, and what did they do about it.

Nothing. What an odious, insidious franchise. From the President all the way to the payers to the director of security.

How do you know Rice was truthful?

 

[Harry Hooper]

How do you know Rice was truthful?

 
Go back to post #783 in this very thread.

 

[Average Reds]

How do you know Rice was truthful?

 
Ravens GM (Ozzie Newsome) stated back in September after seeing the video that Rice had been truthful about what had happened in the elevator when he met with the Ravens and Goodell over the summer.  He then repeated that statement under oath in November when Rice appealed his punishment.
 
Edit:  Not quick enough.

 

[GeorgeCostanza]

The anonymous line sounds great in theory but who in their right mind would call it and out their employer if they had some damning evidence? Most people do not respond honestly to anonymous surveys at work. I sure don't.

Quoted for truth. I work for a finance giant and we have an "anonymous ethics hotline" to report any impropriety. No one in my circle of work friends has ever even thought of calling it, even though we have all talked about potential wrongs that should be reported, all giving the same basic reasoning. They don't feel it is really anonymous. People who try to stir the pot and not drink the koolaid always seem to find themselves on the wrong end of a "restructuring" or "reorg"

 

[Reverend]

 
As far as I know, good forensics teams have the capability to recover information that has been deleted. I'm not positive if that was the case here, but the forensics may have been failry conclusive on the issue, as well, assuming that they had the capability, were handed the actualy computers from the office in place at the time of the issue in question, were thorough, and aren't part of an elaborate conspiracy.

 

 

[pappymojo]

Go back to post #783 in this very thread.

There's a lot of wiggle room in how he could present his version of the events that while truthful would not match my description of the events based on what I saw in the video. Unless they have a transcript of what he told Goodell, I'm not willing to accept the arbitrator's decision that Rice was completely honest.

 

[Average Reds]

There's a lot of wiggle room in how he could present his version of the events that while truthful would not match my description of the events based on what I saw in the video. Unless they have a transcript of what he told Goodell, I'm not willing to accept the arbitrator's decision that Rice was completely honest.

 
It's not the arbitrator that is most persuasive - it's basically everyone associated with the Ravens who have confirmed that Rice did not mince words when he talked about his conduct.
 
The larger point is that this has, in fact, been adjudicated and is no longer in dispute.  If you choose not to believe the findings, that's on you.

 

[Average Reds]

To me, the findings from Mueller are actually more damming, because we know (from reporters/official mouthpieces like King, Mortensen and others) that the Ravens and the NFL engaged in a smear campaign to imply that the full video from the elevator showed that Janay Palmer was the instigator.
 
Now that Mueller has determined that the NFL never had or viewed the videotape, it would be nice if someone would follow up on this angle, because the obvious conclusion is that the NFL consciously created a false narrative blaming the victim and using a video they had never seen to explain a ridiculously light penalty in the first place.
 
The NFL will probably get away with this misdirection, because there's no way that King or Mortensen will follow this story to its logical conclusion.  And that's a shame.

 

[pappymojo]

I think that the following chain of events kind of makes sense, regardless of whether the league saw the video. 
 
1 Abuse in the hotel happens.
2 Rice notifies the Ravens and the league and while being truthful undersells the intensity of what happened.  Something along the lines of 'we were both drunk.  she attacked me, struck me twice, and eventually I reacted in self-defense and she fell and her head on the handle inside the elevator.  I immediately brought her for medical attention.' 
3 The Ravens roll with this and put pressure on the league for a light sentence. 
4 The League follows the suggestions of the Ravens front office and issues a light sentence.
5 The video from inside the elevator is released.
6 The League reacts to the backlash and suspends Rice for the season claiming that the content of the video didn't match Rice's explanation of the incident. 
 
Unless I can see a transcript of the interview between Rice and the League, I'm not willing to accept that he was completely open about the intensity of the event. 
 
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11913473/janay-rice-gives-own-account-night-atlantic-city
 
 
 

We were drunk and tired and while I know that some people may find it hard to believe, none of the six of us can remember exactly what Ray and I were arguing about. It was that insignificant.
 
As we were arguing, he was on his phone and not looking at me. I went to reach for his phone, and when he grabbed it back, he spit at me and I slapped him.
 
We got into the elevator and what happened inside is still foggy to me. The only thing I know -- and I can't even say I "remember" because I only know from what Ray has told me -- is that I slapped him again and then he hit me. I remember nothing else from inside the elevator.
 
The next thing I do recall is being in the casino lobby, surrounded by cops.
 
The police separated us and arrested us. They told me they had the entire incident on video. I was bawling. The cops tried to tell me what happened and I refused to believe them. If anything, I just felt like I was still drunk. I said to one officer, "That's not us. What do you mean?" There were no marks on my face or body, and I felt perfectly fine. I was in complete shock.
 
They took Ray and I to the police station, where they held us together in the same room, but they kept us far enough apart so that they could talk to us separately. Eventually, we were left alone and Ray kept saying, "It's going to be OK. We'll be OK." He just kept crying and apologizing, but I didn't really want to speak to him.

 
then after the video comes out...
 
 
 

The first video followed on February 19 and no, we weren't prepared. I was sick to my stomach. I just broke down in tears.
I said to him, "I don't think I should have seen that."
He said, "me either."
The video didn't make me rethink our relationship, but I did want more of an explanation from him. I asked him why he left me on the floor like that. I asked him how he felt when he saw that I was unconscious. He told me he was in shock. I asked him what happened when we got out of the elevator. He told me he was terrified because security was there. I asked him how he felt seeing me like that. He said he was thinking, "What did I just do?" I didn't watch the video again.

 
To me, this implies that Ray Rice wasn't completely honest about what happened or how he reacted.  I'm sure he was embarrassed and scared and all that, but that she didn't realize how coldly he reacted to her hitting her head, until she saw the video, suggests that he hadn't told her about that. 
 
If Ray Rice wasn't completely honest with his wife, and she was there when he interviewed with the league, why do we believe that he was completely honest with the league?  Because the arbitrator couldn't confirm that he was dishonest?
 
Ray Rice is an asshole.
The Ravens as an organization is full of assholes.
The NFL as an organization is full of assholes. 
 
They are all assholes and I am not comfortable giving anyone involved even the smallest bit of a benefit of the doubt. 

 

[Average Reds]

Last comment here.
 
I think I understand the disconnect you are having, and it's related to the fact that you are focusing on the wrong timeline.  But before I get to that, let me be unequivocal about the following:
 
No one is disputing the Ray Rice is an asshole.  
No one is disputing that he was dishonest about his conduct immediately after his arrest.   (The box with the quote from the Ravens exec was in the immediate aftermath of his arrest in February.)
No one is suggesting that Ray Rice deserves a break in any of this.
 
Rice was generally uncooperative with the club and/or the NFL in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.  When the criminal aspects of the case were disposed of (in late spring) Rice began to reach out the Ravens first and then the league.  The purpose of these meetings was to determine what penalties Rice would receive and how the club and the league would deal with the public aspects of the case.
 
Rice has claimed that during these meetings - and again, these meetings came in late spring and early summer, not February - he was completely honest about his behavior.  And this has been confirmed numerous times by Raven GM Ozzie Newsome, the appeals decision and now by the Mueller Report.
 
The key point in evaluating the stance of the league regarding Rice's behavior is that they have claimed not to be aware of what Rice did without seeing the video.  And the reality is that they were aware well before they handed down the weak punishment. 
 
As to your last statement:

 
They are all assholes and I am not comfortable giving anyone involved even the smallest bit of a benefit of the doubt.

 
I think that's basically what a lot of us have been saying from the start.

 

[Harry Hooper]

At least somebody is paying attention.
Sports Illustrated's Rosenberg: Mueller Report underscores Roger Goodell's deceit in Ray Rice case

On Sept. 8, the league released a statement saying it had not seen the video of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée, and insisted, "We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator."
 
Yet Mueller writes, "League investigators did not contact any of the police officers who investigated the incident, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, or the Revel [casino] to attempt to obtain or view the in-elevator video or to obtain other information. No one from the League asked Rice or his lawyer whether they would make available for viewing the in-elevator video they received as part of criminal discovery in early April. And, after the initial contacts with the Ravens in the immediate aftermath of the incident, League investigators did not follow up with the Ravens to determine whether the team had additional information."
 
That’s one big heavyweight champion of a lie. In fact, this whole report is supposed to be part of the lie, which is ongoing and will probably not end until you forget this incident, or simply get tired of it.
 
I don’t think Mueller is lying, and I don’t think Goodell asked him to lie. The commissioner and his advisors are too clever for that. They just asked Mueller to find a different truth. It’s like Goodell got caught with his hand in a cookie jar, and he hired an independent investigator to determine whether cookies are healthy. Now he wants to be a pioneer in the movement for healthier cookies, and you think, "Wait, what just happened here?"

 

[mwonow]

At least somebody is paying attention.
Sports Illustrated's Rosenberg: Mueller Report underscores Roger Goodell's deceit in Ray Rice case

 
This is in pretty stark contrast to the always-compliant Peter King's observation this morning: ""I wish Goodell would admit why he was soft on Rice in the first place." If only there were people whose job it is to dig for explanations like this!

 

[8slim]

A side note... During the Pats game I found the way NBC handled reporting the release of the report nauseating.

They clearly gave Costas and Michaels carefully scripted statements to robotically read on air. Plus Costas threw to Peter King pre-game to add carefully scripted commentary.

It was so transparently plastic and clearly an effort to check the box of "reporting" the findings without saying anything that would upset the NFL and Goodell.

Really awful.

 

[E5 Yaz]

A side note... During the Pats game I found the way NBC handled reporting the release of the report nauseating.

They clearly gave Costas and Michaels carefully scripted statements to robotically read on air. Plus Costas threw to Peter King pre-game to add carefully scripted commentary.

It was so transparently plastic and clearly an effort to check the box of "reporting" the findings without saying anything that would upset the NFL and Goodell.

Really awful.

 
Read Richard Deistch?

 

[8slim]

 
Read Richard Deistch?

I tend to avoid him, he's a bit too smug and self righteous for me.

I take it he commented?

 

[E5 Yaz]

I tend to avoid him, he's a bit too smug and self righteous for me.

I take it he commented?

 
Pretty much point for point what you said. Although more smug and self-righteous in tone

 

[8slim]

 
Pretty much point for point what you said. Although more smug and self-righteous in tone

Ha. Sometimes he makes great points. Sometimes he's needlessly confrontational. He's always kind of a jerk about it.