ATC maybe should have sent him elsewhere. But they made a decision not to do that. The problem is that they executed their decision with an utter lack of professionalism (with one exception). Yelling, threatening, insulting both directly and publicly to other professionals, etc. have no place in any professional context (except for the context of those being your profession, which is not applicable to ATC).
Professionalism in any field, in my book, means maintaining the same level of competence and decorum no matter how difficult things are or how badly they are going. Neal Armstrong's heartrate hit 150 on short final to Tranquility Base, an approach that was challenging enough even if it hadn't been riddled with unexpected guidance computer errors, but you wouldn't guess that it exceeded about 35 beats per minute if you listen to the tape. Listen to the ATC audio of the Miracle on the Hudson and you won't catch the slightest deviation from decorum even though Sullenberger and Skiles were as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger in a windstorm trying to bring their airplane back to life or at least make a forced landing that someone would live to tell about, all while Betty was screaming at them to pull up. (ATC did a great job on that one, too. If the same controllers from this thread were at KTEB tower back in 2009, it makes even more sense to go for the Hudson instead.) Stevie Ray Vaughan would keep playing his heart out with a broken string until his tech brought him a fresh guitar mid-song, never missing a beat.
When your profession involves talking to people whose lives are to some degree in your hands, there is no excuse for acting like an angry toddler. Full stop. That goes double when the person you are talking to is struggling to keep it together, for any reason. I understand that the culture in that part of the country might have a greater degree of acceptance for that flavor of impatient unprofessionalism than elsewhere. If so, that doesn't make it any less unprofessional. If you call 911 with a bleeding femoral artery, do they just scream at you repeatedly to "stop ****ing bleeding and calm the **** down" until your heart stops and then tell your colleagues what a disaster you were?
The pilot probably should not have been in the air at all that day, much less in challenging airspace. We don't know if he was fine when he took off and got a dose of carbon monoxide in the air or if he stole someone's car keys to go flying despite doctor's orders that he isn't fit to leave the house. We don't have any defense for him other than speculation. But this isn't a zero-sum game and it is possible that more than one person was in the wrong. No part of how this amateur pilot conducted his flight gives the professional controllers an excuse for how they conducted themselves.
