[Mike Nifong]

As we've remarked so often, the main part of his case is to get Mangum and Pittman/Roberts to point at the defendants and say "they called us n*gg*rs". The (lack of) the rest of the evidence won't matter and Nifong thinks, by making it all about race, a Durham jury will convict. He may be right.

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Therein lies the case! I think Nifong's plan was to focus on those slurs and repeat statements by the AV and Kim that showed they were treated as "less than human". And then he would bring out everything on their Computers - ala Scott Peterson. Every e-mail ever written with something negative towards women (they are 19) or minorities and/or sites they have visited will be used to pillory them.

That's why the Durham City Council/DPD/Nifong has to find Gottlieb and Clayton weren't involved or that the cook is lying - because those charges will give the Defense a club to beat back the only thing Nifong has - emotional racial issues.

[Locomotive Breath]

I'm figuring that maybe Gottlieb, at least, was really unhappy at being involved as Nifong's tool to prosecute a case that Gottlieb thought shouldn't go forward since Gottlieb knows "it's a crock" and especially since Gottlieb maybe doesn't like black people in the first place.

I'm wondering if the incident at the sports bar was maybe:

1) an explosion of pent up rage at a random black person for having to be Nifong's sock puppet and help put over a racial hoax

and/or

2) a conscious or unconscious attempt by Gottlieb to ruin Gottlieb's value as a witness so Gottlieb is removed from the Duke rape investigation. Yeah, Gottlieb gets a reprimand in his file but he doesn't have to get up in court and lie for Nifong which could be a very bad move if there is a crapstorm (may it be so) in Nifong's future.