Duke Rape Details Are Duds

Duff Wilson and Jonathan Glater, authors of this editorial, I mean article ,titled

Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers

which ostensibly covers revealing details about the Duke Rape debacle, represent the worst sort of journalists. They write a startling headline on the front page, and reveal themselves to be no more factual or unbiased than the breathless neighborhood gossip. Why, oh why, did I even bother reading it? I should know better by now.

Where to start? The piece was so irritating I didn't even want to blog on it--which is why I waited 'til tonight. Rrrrrr..... Here's one example:

Whether the woman was in fact raped is the question at the center of a case that has become a national is cause célèbre, yet another painful chapter in the tangled American opera of race, sex and privilege. (My comments in green throughout: Could we be any more dramatic boys? Besides, you're wrong. The scandal with this case is that no matter the outcome of this case, 48 boys--one black--will have to live with the infamy of being a "Duke Lacrosse player of '06", and could be 100% innocent. They have been tried, and hung in the press because the alleged victim is black. This case confirms the biases that liberals have about "race and privilage".) Defense lawyers, amplified by Duke alumni and a group of bloggers who have closely followed the case, have portrayed it as a national scandal — that there is only the flimsiest physical evidence of rape, that the accuser is an unstable fabricator, and that Mr. Nifong, in the middle of a tight primary campaign, was summoning racial ghosts for political gain. (After this statement, you'd expect the article to be filled with facts that would contradict that exact point of view, wouldn't you? In fact, any time-challenged reader stopping here, would say, "hmmm, the newspaper of record says there is a lot more to the case." Except that there isn't.)

By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks. (Oh, really? The defense is the problem in this case? You mean they shouldn't try to rebut the constantly spewed nonsense out of the DA's mouth, they should just let his unsupported notions lie and let the defendents die on the vine of public opinion shaped by a tyrannical DA and complicit MSM?) But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong’s case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury. ("Big weaknesses"? You're kidding right? You could drop a MOAB through this case's weaknesses.)

Now, you might think after those two paragraphs citing "1,850 pages of evidence", that loads and loads and loads of damning material was disclosed. Uh oh! Those Duke devils deserve damnation. Fer shur! You might think that, but there's just nothing there. Here it comes:

Crucial to that portrait of the case are Sergeant Gottlieb’s 33 pages of typed notes and 3 pages of handwritten notes, which have not previously been revealed.

But wait, those 3 pages of handwritten notes were written during the investigation. Where did this booklet-length typed notes come from?

The sergeant’s notes are drawing intense scrutiny from defense lawyers both because they appear to strengthen Mr. Nifong’s case and because they were not turned over by the prosecution until after the defense had made much of the gaps in the earlier evidence.

Joseph B. Cheshire, a lawyer for David Evans, one of the defendants, called Sergeant Gottlieb’s report a “make-up document.” He said Sergeant Gottlieb had told defense lawyers that he took few handwritten notes, relying instead on his memory and other officers’ notes to write entries in his chronological report of the investigation. (Hahahahaha! This is where the evidence lies? Duff and Jon, you're kidding right? That this is giving you hope that the case will go the way you want with potentially innocent guys going down based on a dude's long-term memory and "other officers"?)

Mr. Cheshire said the sergeant’s report was “transparently written to try to make up for holes in the prosecution’s case.” He added, “It smacks of almost desperation.”

Desperation, indeed.

And then, on page two of this fair article, the pictures of the three young men, are again plastered. Still innocent, I recall, until proven guilty. You know what? If DNA and timing and every other detail of this case supported the woman of high honor making this claim, I might not feel so bad with their pictures revealed. But give me a break, the evidence is flimsy, but the pictures and names do elicit "frat boy rage"--a new disease started by Bush hatred. (I can just hear liberals saying, "I bet that's just the kind of guy George Bush was when he was in college. Rich, privilaged and WHITE!")

The article authors go on to describe the alleged victim. Why she sounds almost saintly.

Her partner was a 27-year-old single mother of two, a student with a B average at North Carolina Central University, the historically black college across town. She worked flexible hours at Platinum Pleasures, a strip club, and for Angel’s Escorts. She was a stripper, not a prostitute, she later told the police. She told them that “she had been to one event in the past where she thought a male at the party was nice, so after the party they went out and had consensual sexual relations,” but just that once.

Puhleeeze!

The article goes on and on like this. Rehashing what everyone knows, but spinning it into literary cotton candy.

I read over at Betsy's that even Dan Abrams is fuming about the NYT's piece. Betsy has a lot more and great links if you can stomach it.