Yes, very understandable, since she wrote like a cocky smart-aleck, and talked down to a senior scientist.
Shall I take it from your reply that you are such a paragon of self-control that you have never even once in your life responded to unwarranted aggression and rudeness by showing a small degree of irritation?
The facts are these: An arrogant young twit insulted Behe; a research scientist (Musgrave) “looked the other way” regarding the unprofessional rudeness, and then took Behe to task for not immediately replying to the rude writer; Behe explained to research scientist why he did not initially reply to the rudeness, and in doing so, characterized it (correctly) as rude; Behe relented (not because of the condescending attitude of Musgrave, but because his friends requested it), and replied to the science part of the twit’s article, prefacing it with only a very brief remark about her manner of writing; the remark, in context, was not “sexist” as it clearly targeted the large body of anti-ID Panda’s Thumb posters, the vast majority of whom were male (i.e., all of those males were explicitly included in the “Mean Girls” reference); Behe’s relatively mild show of irritation was not even close to the level of irritation (including outright anger and nastiness) I have seen in the reaction of many other “adult” professors to students who were obnoxious to them; and finally, at the time, Behe was being attacked, often in very personal ways, almost daily around the internet, in book reviews, etc., with both his scientific knowledge and his moral character being frequently impugned – a condition which might well finally produce a slight show of irritation even in the best and most restrained of men. On the last point, if you yourself were frequently called a liar, a hypocrite, a coward, and a violator of the ninth commandment (all of which charges were frequently levelled at him by commenters on BioLogos), and were called other names by scientific colleagues, by bloggers, etc., might not a smart-aleck, sarcastic set of comments by an arrogant young undergrad be “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and caused you to slightly falter in your own decorum? Are you so morally pure that you can say this could not possibly happen to you, were you in Behe’s situation at that time?
Further, there is a tacit double standard on your criticism of Behe here. We have on this site someone who, like Behe, is an “adult, professor, and author,” who regularly peppers his posts with digs at me of a personal kind; not once have you told him that he is not behaving like an “adult, professor, and author.” Several of his comments to me have been grayed out for violating the rules of civil discourse (and I wasn’t the one in any of those cases who flagged the comments). If you are so concerned about the decorum that professors ought to maintain in their public speech, it’s odd that you only express that concern when the “violator” is a Christian and ID proponent, such as Behe, but never when a much more frequent and much more aggressive violator is an atheist and unguided evolutionist. I would be more inclined to take you as having the moral high ground regarding Behe’s behavior if you showed anything like a steady opposition to the behavior you here claim to be unacceptable.
Behe does not owe Abbie Smith any apology. She owes him one. But she will never deliver it.