I wrote something similar to this a while back in this thread, but this seems an opportune time to re-iterate and expand on it.
On some of the more, let's say, less-than-sympathetic forums to Mike Portnoy, a question often gets asked of how his diehard fans (of which I'm one) can keep standing up for him when he does stuff like this.
Firstly let me get the 'negative' stuff out of the way...
There are 2 things I'd personally like Mike to learn, either by himself or for someone close to him to try to make him see it. One is his misguided tendency to speak about fans in war-like terms, you're either with him or against him, you're a true fan or a hater, and so on.
The other is I wish he'd take note of his own words, when he writes things like "I'm a human and I also have feelings, this stuff you write on the internet hurts, please remember actual people read this stuff!"....well, yeah Mike, that's why you can't always dismiss the offensive stuff you write on the internet as "Just my opinion, life is good, everyone go relax in the sun!" Some underpaid and overworked nurse at that hospital woke up to the furore over your Facebook post, and she's a real human with feelings, just like you. Why do you demand everyone treats you with respect on the net but you sometimes shirk your own responsibility in that regard?
But as others have said above, I do believe he's an extremely nice and sweet guy, I don't think he has any nastiness or malice in him. He just doesn't handle negative emotions very well, he's very impulsive. But that (to the question above, about why his fans stick by him through all the shit) is a character trait which I think is the other side of the coin of his talent. No other drummer has moved me with his playing as much as him, on tracks like Name of God, Stream of Consciousness, Count of Tuscany. That sense of spontaneity and unpredictability which I get from his best work, I don't think any other kind of character could have done that.
He isn't a perfect person, that doesn't need saying, none of us is. Frankly speaking this hospital thing pissed me off a bit (as an English socialist, I'm very defensive of the NHS, and I tried to explain to him why on his Forum), but it doesn't come close to comparing how angry I was at him when he humiliated that Philipino (I think it was the Phillipines) kid on stage, when his drums were fucked up. That's the 'worst' thing he's done, in my eyes. But even that isn't the end of the world. The good stuff he does massively outweighs it.
When you're an MP fan, you learn to accept that now and again stuff like this will happen, and always it'll be the result of his not being able, on very rare occasions to be fair, to control his impulses in times of stress. I still really like the guy, I still think he's one of the greatest musicians to follow as a fan, and the times he fucks up are actually pretty seldom compared to others I could name.