If I were in the players' place and Nifong suggested a plea bargain, I would tell him to his face--with the vilest profanity imaginable, reflecting on his personal character, ethics, and honor--what he could do with it, while adding that I would spend the rest of my life making sure that any disciplinary actions taken against him by his bar association (assuming that it finds him guilty of the ethics charges) follow him for the rest of his career. I would add that his family members and relatives will probably, (again, assuming that he is found guilty of the ethics charges), have to change their names from "Nifong" to anything else.
If Nifong is found guilty on the ethnics charges, a new verb, "to Nifong someone," should enter our vocabulary. E.g. "Wall Street Journal columns by Dorothy Rabinowitz show how the Amiraults and Grant Snowden were Nifonged by less-than-ethical prosecutors for personal political gain."
I've heard a claim that early on in this case ESPN reported that an "anonamous" source (one of the members of the Duke team who was at the party?) admitted that he and other members did have sex with the stripper while she was unconscious. I'm wondering if there is any validity to there being such a report from ESPN? I've not heard any such claim having been reported anywhere. Can anyone help on this?
The verb form of the thing will likely be "nife" as in " I've been nifed". This is the first time anybody has tried anything similar to one of Janet Reno's witchcraft persecutions in the internet age, a dozen years ago the Fong would have easily skated by with it. In fact there's one poor SOB (Frank Fuster) still rotting in a Flori-Duh prison for one of Reno's imaginary ritual abuse cases and you'd like to think that a republican governor like Jeb Bush might have done something about that by now...
This whole sordid affair is surreal to say the least. Reality seems to elude people, namely the race baiters and the mentally afflicted enemy within.
I only hope that the three lax players take a page out of Richard Jewel's play book and go after the talking heads in the media that tried and convicted them at the time leading up to and at the time of the indictment. News organizations like MSNBC and Jim Rome (who was particulary malicious).
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/07/word.of.the.year/index.html
We need to make sure that "Nifonged" is the word of the year for 2007.
This case is the Mississippi Three in reverse.
The MSM and almost everyone else who lived through the 50/60s and the Civil Rights movement wants to relive the glory days over and over.
The case seemed like a dream come true for a politcally ambitious prosecutor and the MSM who aren't interested in silly details like guilt, innocence or evidence. No, they simply want this news/election cycle's example of institutionalized racism and members of the elite class protecting their own.
The sides have changed since the 60s and so have the methods. Nothing so crude as a bullet behind the ear and a car drowned or buried, mind you. No, the ivory tower types and the get-whiteys (both conveniently located in Durham NC) find themselves uncomfortable bedfellows as they attempt to railroad 3 innocent individuals simply because they resent the individuals' race, socioeconomic status, education level, choice of sport, etc. Even the most rabid support of Nifong and/or the "victim" has to admit that were the color palette reversed this case would have been over months ago and the accused set free, if not given huge sums of money and a parade in the town square.
Those with an appreciation for irony will have a good laugh or perhaps even a cry when they consider the "heroes" of the left, especially on campus: Che Guevera (better looking than Castro and iconic since he's forever young in death), Guantanamo inmates (who would slit the throat of the nearest lesbian "gender roles" associate professor at the first opportunity), Mumia abu-Jamal, etc. etc. Questionable or non-existent exculpatory evidence, shouts of habeas corpus, speedy trials, and the rest are employed by the shedload in attempting to free mindless killers but the silence regarding three obviously innocent fellow citizens - born and bred and certainly entitled to Constitutional protections - is as telling as it is complete.
I know I'm saying absolutely nothing original; the onus is on our side to maintain vigilance and volume on this issue. The left thought they'd picked a winner at the county fair and ran home only to find a sickly pig in a poke. The back-tracking and stonewalling, especially from "educators" who should have known better, is a start but even when the boys are freed this case is the perfect turning point to eliminate the endless game of oneupmanship egged on by the media and pandering politicians.
Prosecutors have somehow taken over our country and the lives of all of us are under threat from them. They're grandstanders like Nifong or Spitzer and they decide they don't like you or want to make a point or advance their careers. What happpens? You're toast. They are completely unregulated and unsupervised free agents who make the Grand Inquisitor look like he wasn't really trying.
I prefer to be Lewinskied.