a baffling case

I've been baffled today. I read an article here about how a consultant was fired (well, his contract with the school was ended before anyone expected - same thing) from a school. (I'm choosing my words carefully here).
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I've never met the man who was fired. I have sympathy for him, as I would for anyone who suddenly found themselves out of a consulting position. But at the same time, his online presence (he's on some the listservs I read) has always annoyed me. He used to send out - might still, I'm behind on my listservs - reviews of books that he chose as especially good books. I mean, he sent them to literally thousands of people. I can't even imagine the arrogance that would allow someone to think that their opinion should be sent out, unsolicited, and off-topic. I mean, these posts to listservs just came out of the blue, roughly once a week - they weren't relevant to the discussion on the listserv at the moment.
I mean, if one has the need to post this sort of thing, why not have a blog, as I and hundreds of others do, where people can choose to come and be bored by lengthy and subjective chatter about books? I'd even accept one blogger's model as an improvement: posting occasionally to the listserv to mention that her website has new content (but not much of an improvement: her musings have logical gaps that drive me batty. Her blog is like For Better or For Worse - I can't stop reading it, even though I know I'll dislike it, and think it's lacking in academic rigor. To be fair, For Better or For Worse doesn't need academic rigor. I'd accept punchlines that were even occasionally funny, characters that were interesting, and, well, a comic strip that hadn't long surpassed its ideal retirement date. But the irritating blogger is, well, an academic, and so I hold her to academic standards).
But apparently people on these listservs feel more favorably about the consultant than I do, because the comments on the listservs have been uniformly supportive of the consultant, and critical of the school. There weren't any that suggested that the principal's request to talk to the consultant about the book might have been to set up a more formal hearing. (This isn't a stretch; when books are challenged at my local library, there's a quick meeting to set a date, and then everyone goes off to read the book, examine reviews, and marshal arguments for or against the book's retention/shelving in the same place).
One person on the listservs even suggested that it was out of line for the principal to reject, quickly, a suggestion from the author of the book under dispute. The author had suggested that if the school's 6th-grade teachers taught the book in the classrooms, he'd pay for copies of the book, and come to speak to the school for free. (I have seen my fair share, and more, of author visits, and I'd venture to suggest that this isn't a good deal for the school. Why change the curriculum just for an author visit and some free books?)
I work for intellectual freedom, as part of my job. I take book challenges, both mine and those in other cities, seriously. But honestly, I don't think some of my fellow listserv members read the articles about this very carefully.
Anyway, if anyone has made it to the end of this lengthy post, kudos. I haven't even mentioned this to my SO, or to my colleagues, because I didn't think I could explain it concisely. I see from the above that that was a good guess. But also: if the comments of intelligent people were so uniformly supportive, I didn't trust others not to fell for the same errors in reasoning.
Arrogant, aren't I, to assume that I'm the only one who is correct? Well, it's my blog. I can be arrogant here, if need be.