What Do ALAS Feminist Bloggers Have in Common With Rush Limbaugh Supporters?

This is in relation, once again, to the Duke Rape Case. I find a terrible and frightening similarity between nuggets of anonymous thought on a popular feminist blog called ALAS, and the kind of stuff you read on the radical right blogs, i.e., a strategy of shoot first and keep shooting till your hand goes cold. They readily accepted the false claims and statements of Nifong and Mangum with the same zeal and unquestioning vigor that Rush Limbaugh junkies accept the words of their master as absolute gospel. Course, the media disinformation, Nancy Grace, and others, are to blame for much of this, but still. You judge for yourself. Is this typical of feminist thinking or just typical of human beings who reinforce each other's wrongness? ... These comments are from last spring. Posters are commenting on the "guilt" of the lacrosse players.

• Q Grrl Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 7:36 am The entire Duke lacrosse team has shat on the community for years — turn around is fair play.


• Rachel S Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 6:41 am One of the things that I find ironic is that these people who are so quick to point out alternative theories and suggest that this never happen are prognosticating (sp) about evidence that is either wrong or simply not there.


• Antigone Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 7:20 am I don’t doubt that the girl was raped.


• Shannon Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 7:21 am I think the victim deserves someone to take her side for once. These guys can get a fancy lawyer, and are protected by their status. Nobody is calling them into account for their rowdyness or loud partying, and saying that is why they raped the woman, but the woman is being bashed by rape apologists right and left.


• Q Grrl Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 8:38 am What part of the crime do you disbelieve? Barring non-consensual sex, what about the beating and strangulation? These men, specifically the lacrosse team, have proven, year after year after year, their willingness to engage in illegal and disruptive behavior, with little to no regard to the consequences. Suddenly, when the crimes escalate (or are finally reported) these men are innocent until proven guilty? Honey, they’ve been proving their guilt for years. Hell, they’ve already copped to criminal activity the night of the party, so I’m really not sure what “innocence” of theirs you’re trying to shore up.


• Ampersand Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 9:52 am But it seems incredibly unlikely that all of them are innocent (even if none of them committed the rape, some of them may have important knowledge that they’re withholding, such as descriptions of other guests at the party). Under the circumstances, and given the severity of the crime, I don’t think the use of public shaming by the DA is out of line.


• geoduck2 Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 10:03 am What is it about this case that is hard to understand? The police found 4 fingernails & her cellphone and her makeup bag in the house. (They held her from behind with an arm around her neck. Her nails broke off as she tried to pull away the arm that was cutting off her airway.) The medical examination found tearing and injuries consistent with rape. Her father says that her face is bruised ... A court standard is innocent until proven guilty. But we are all free to take and judge the information available to us.


• ms. jared Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 11:10 am thank you for this post. i too have noticed how quick everyone is to say “don’t rush to judgement” but it seems it’s only reserved for rape. we can “rush to judge” ken lay and tom delay and every other criminal ASAP but when it comes to rape we’re all supposed to immediately dismiss the victim’s claims and wait for the courts to decide.from what i’ve read and from past experience, i am much more inclined to believe her and i do.


• anon Writes: April 3rd, 2006 at 1:14 pm I posted the below on Rachel’s Tavern, but I think it is relevant to this discussion. The way I see it, you basically have 2 kinds of people - those who are able to believe that such heinous acts can be committed by “basically good kids” and those who are not willing to believe it, which leads them to concoct elaborate schemes for explaining the rape and beating of this woman (which as far as I can tell is not in question - the only thing that IS in question is the who) ... Similarly, I think the men on the Duke Lacrosse team who allegedly raped the young woman have some sort of explanation in their heads that absolve them of responsibility. They may believe these rationales so completely that they are probably puzzled by the outrage and outcry. They may have lied to themselves so completley that they have begun to really believe it.

And then, many months later, when it had become overwhelmingly clear that Nifong and Mangum were lying and that the lacrosse players were innocent (even Susan Estrich had backed off), we have comments by many of the exact same people, even as recently as June. The comments in parens are mine:

• Whether or not the Duke Lacrosse Players committed rape that night--I now believe they did not, although of course I could be mistaken--thinking that an inconsistent narrative shows no rape took place is wrong. (OMG! After it had been shown that Mangum lied repeatedly to protect herself and destroy the lives of others--and btw, inconsistent story demonstrates false testimony in other crimes so why do these people not see this as evidence of lying, especially in this case where the lies on the part of Mangum were so numerous and profound?)


• With trepidation, I’m not limiting the comments here to feminists. (In other words, these people fear opinions that might contradict their own?)


• If it can be proven that Nifong withheld evidence and lied to the judge, he should be disbarred and, ideally, put behind bars. (OMG! IF? IF? IF? Who is she kidding?)


• THIS POST IS A FEMINIST, PRO-FEMINIST AND FEMINIST-FRIENDLY ONLY THREAD. (Regarding an ALAS post that slams everyone as a "vulture" who claims false rape charges potentially hurt real victims--in other words, this poster seems to be saying, "Just tell me what I want to hear." I have friends who work in rape crisis centers who say the same thing. I guess they're vultures too?)


• I stand by most of my past posts on this subject. But I no longer believe Mary Doe was raped that night. Nor do I believe she wasn’t raped. I’m now an agnostic on this question. (She is "agnostic" on the subject! No evasion here.)

Enough. Now, I can't talk compare this to Rush Limbaugh supporters without wanting to vomit, so I'll just leave that part out. But a big question remains. Have these people become just what they hate, i.e., ignorant, narrow-minded sexists?

You tell me.

"Until Proven Innocent" - A Must Book for "Liberal" Hypocrites - Ugly and True

I've gave up on the left many years ago, and the right long before that. What I'm left with now are feelings of revulsion and impatience, for I find them both horribly hypocritical and self-serving. Whatever happened to reason, I ask you? Nevertheless, you must buy and read the nonfiction book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. The book was written by Stuart Taylor, a columnist for National Journal, and K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY.

No book could possibly do a better job of documenting and shining a glaring spotlight on the radical left of the Duke Campus--a group of lynch-mob academics who were determined, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to condemn three innocent people simply because they were white and male. The evidence cannot be refuted. It's UGLY and it's TRUE. Only the biggest ostrich on earth could hide from these facts.

Courtesy of a great article on UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT on NPR, a slice or two from Chapter 8:

For many months not one of the more than five hundred members of the Duke arts and sciences faculty—the professors who teach Duke undergraduates — publicly criticized the district attorney or defended the lacrosse players' rights to fair treatment. Not even after enough evidence had become publicly available to establish clearly both the falsity of the rape charge and the outrageousness of Nifong's actions—widely seen as the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct ever to unfold in plain view. But, as some admitted privately to friends, they were also afraid to cross the activists—black and female activists especially—lest they be smeared with charges of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, or right-wingism ...That's what would happen to a chemistry professor who—months after the team's innocence had become clear—became the first member of the arts and sciences faculty to break ranks with the academic herd. It took less than twenty-four hours for the head of Duke's women's studies program to accuse him of racism in a letter to The Chronicle.

The book goes further to note the contribution of a special Duke faculty member, Houston A. Baker Jr., a professor of English and of African and African-American Studies.

Baker was in demand among TV hosts such as MSNBC's Rita Cosby and CNN's Nancy Grace. He was also quoted in newspapers local and national, including The New York Times and USA Today ... Baker provided a window both into his soul and into the indifference of many academics to fact after a critic e-mailed him, "You will owe a big apology when the truth comes out, but I doubt you will be man enough to issue it." Retorted the professor: "Who is really concerned about whether a woman was actually raped or not? Are you a perfect idiot?" Baker tossed out a litany of false charges of misbehavior by lacrosse players, such as that they had "beat up people who were gay," before closing: "... You live in a white supremacist fantasy land. . . . Whew! Have you read recently? Anything? . . . And, get over yourself, buddy. Get smart before you write to a professor, OK. Read SOMETHING."

Thanks guys, for "Until Proven Innocent." Thanks to National Public Radio for bubbling this book to the surface.

A Great Prosecutor to Convict an Innocent Man - Nifong, Fatty Arbuckle, and Nancy Grace

My passion for gross and obvious injustice is equaled only by my loathing of The Emperor's Children, however, I must call attention to these observations by Jonathan Turley following the Duke Rape Case:

What's most remarkable about the whole scene, though, is how rare it is. Nifong's misconduct was hardly unusual: Some of the most high-profile cases in history have involved strikingly similar acts of prosecutorial abuse. But instead of being punished, the worst violators are often lionized for their aggressive styles -- maybe even rewarded with a cable television show.

Nifong is a classic example of the corrosive effect of high-profile cases on a prosecutor's judgment and sense of decency. Even before the players were indicted, the district attorney had played to the passions surrounding a black stripper's allegations that she had been raped by affluent white college boys. Nifong called the Duke players "a bunch of hooligans'' and promised that he would not allow "Durham in the mind of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl in Durham."

But he had a problem. The accuser kept changing her story, and there was no evidence of a gang rape. In addition to his prejudicial comments, Nifong was accused of withholding test results showing that DNA found on the woman's body and underwear came from at least four unknown males -- but none of the 46 lacrosse team members.

Nifong isn't the first prosecutor who, in his words, "got carried away" in the glare of television lights. In 1921, the silent-film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was tried for the alleged rape and murder of a 30-year-old showgirl named Virginia Rappe during a party in a hotel suite. The San Francisco district attorney, Matthew Brady, faced a situation almost identical to Nifong's: His chief witness was less than credible.

Rappe's friend Maude Delmont dramatically described how Arbuckle had dragged Rappe into the bedroom, gleefully proclaiming, "I've waited five years to get you." She insisted that she spoke with Rappe three days later, just before the young woman died (of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder), and related the too perfect account of how Rappe yelled, "I'm hurt, I'm dying. He did it, Maude." In reality, rather than staying by her dying friend's bedside, Delmont had run to send a telegram to friends that read: "We have Roscoe Arbuckle in a hole here. Chance to make some money out of him."

It didn't matter. Brady was hooked. Like Nifong's conflicting DNA report, the coroner's report in the Arbuckle case found "no marks of violence . . . and absolutely no evidence of a criminal assault, no signs that the girl had been attacked in any way." Just as Nifong insisted that he had clear evidence against the lacrosse players, Brady released a statement (soon after receiving the coroner's report) saying that the evidence "shows conclusively that either a rape or an attempt to rape was perpetrated." Notably, when Arbuckle was finally acquitted in a third trial, the jury issued a written apology for the "great injustice . . . done him."

and further:

History is rife with such "great prosecutors" convicting the innocent to satisfy the public. In the 1913 Leo Frank trial, Atlanta chief prosecutor Hugh Dorsey pursued a Jewish factory owner for the rape and murder of 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan. It was a period of intense anti-Semitism, with crowds chanting "Kill the Jew" outside the courtroom. Prosecutors ignored the fact that all the evidence pointed to a janitor, Jim Conley, as the killer. Instead, they repeatedly rewrote Conley's conflicting statements to help him manufacture a coherent account for trial. Conley was identified years later as the killer by a witness, but it was too late for Frank. He was kidnapped from prison by vigilantes (including many leading lawyers) and hanged near Mary's grave.

When told that he had secured the death penalty against an innocent man, a Texas prosecutor once reportedly boasted that "any prosecutor can convict a guilty man; it takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent man."

and on to my favorite bad-TV personality who gets five stars for creative man-hating:

Consider the career of Nancy Grace. Before becoming a CNN and Court TV anchor, she was a notorious prosecutor in Alabama. In a blistering 2005 federal appeals opinion, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a conservative former Alabama attorney general, found that Grace had "played fast and loose" with core ethical rules in a 1990 triple-murder case. Like Nifong, Grace was accused of not disclosing critical evidence (the existence of other suspects) as well as knowingly permitting a detective to testify falsely under oath. The Georgia Supreme Court also reprimanded her for withholding evidence and for making improper statements in a 1997 arson and murder case. The court overturned the conviction in that case and found that Grace's behavior "demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness and was inexcusable." She faced similar claims in other cases.

You might have expected Grace to suffer the same fate as Nifong. Instead, she has her own show on CNN, and the network celebrates her as "one of television's most respected legal analysts." On TV, she displays the same style she had in the courtroom. (In the Duke case, her presumed-guilty approach was evident early on, when she declared: "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape.")

The Grace effect is not lost on aspiring young prosecutors who struggle to outdo one another as camera-ready, take-no-prisoners avengers of justice. Grace's controversial career also shows how prosecutors can routinely push the envelope without fear of any professional consequences. Often this does not mean violating an ethics rule, but using legally valid charges toward unjust ends.

One of my favorite topics, and one largely ignored by Americans everywhere.