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NYS: Brawley Case of the South
New York Sun ^ | August 10, 2007 | JOHN LEO

Posted on 08/10/2007 9:07:07 AM PDT by OESY

If anyone ever starts a museum of horrible explanations, the one-liner by Newsweek's Evan Thomas about his magazine's dubious reporting on the Duke non-rape case— "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong" —is destined to become a popular exhibit, right up there with "we had to destroy the village to save it."

What Mr. Thomas seems to mean is that the newsroom view of the lacrosse players as privileged, sexist, and arrogant white male jocks was the correct angle on the story. It wasn't.

According to Duke's female lacrosse team and other women on campus, the male players are solid citizens who treat women well. Many players volunteer to tutor poor children in Durham. Some players are privileged, but most come from ordinary middle-class homes. There is no evidence of a racist team culture.

One objectionable racial comment was reported that night, in response to a racial taunt from one of the strippers. It occurred after the party and the player involved was not one of those indicted. The mainstream press, most conspicuously the New York Times, botched the story by imposing a race-gender-class narrative line. The facts were wrong, as Mr. Thomas said, but the narrative line was wrong too.

Bias complaints against the mainstream press usually involve the stubborn use of a preferred story line when facts are shaky or nonexistent. The New Republic's current trouble may be in this category.

The magazine's three "Baghdad Diarist" columns by an anonymous American soldier, later identified as Private Scott Beauchamp, presented a sour view of American troops. It included an anecdote about Mr. Beauchamp and a comrade humiliating an Iraqi woman whose face had been "melted" by an IED. The editors set forth the narrative line—the "morally and emotionally distorting effects of war" are unbalancing some American troops....

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: beauchamp; bias; dukelax; evanthomas; johnleo; jouralists; medialies; newrepublic; newsweek; newyorktimes; tnr
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To: USNBandit

Not to mention that Al Gore Sr.’s sugar daddy was the Commie, Armand Hammer, master of Occidental Petroleum.


21 posted on 08/10/2007 10:26:15 AM PDT by Inwoodian
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To: Inwoodian
Excellent point. I forgot all about that.

I guess you can't get rich with just tobacco

"I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it."

Maybe he is also living off royalties from "Love Story" and inventing the Internet.

22 posted on 08/10/2007 10:49:01 AM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Emile

I wish to offer my personal encounter with one of the Duke 88 after I sent them a group e mail. It is detailed below.

I was outraged by the arrogant and presumptive proclamation by 88 members of the Duke University after they took out an ad in a campus newspaper connecting the accused Duke La Crosse players with intimidation and racism.

Accordingly, I sent two group emails to the Duke 88. The only response I received was from one Paula McClain, who among her other offices is the Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences at Duke. Below is the second iteration of the two messages that I sent.

The Duke Rape case is a crystallization (pardon the pun) of all the corruption to the rule of law, linear reasoning and the presumption of innocence engendered by political correctness and Cultural Marxism (particularly that personified by campus professorial elites) .

It has added a new phrase to the lexicon: To be Nifonged. The egregious conduct of Nifong will be addressed in other venues. As an Illinois state policeman for 28 years, I can say with near complete confidence that a case like this with these facts would never have passed Felony Review with even the WORST State’s Attorney that I ever dealt with.

The most important lesson to be gleaned from this is that Tawana Brawley Syndrome is no substitute for a proper analysis of the objective facts. I LOVE to see liberals like you hoisted on the petard of Political Correctness, racial identity politics, gender determinint feminism and what I have coined as “Tawana Brawley Syndrome”.

TBS exists when one takes a historical reality such as the marginalization of innocent blacks within a once overtly racist criminal justice system or the past subjugation of women or any number of other offenses and attempts to apply that to a contemporary situation wherein the objective facts don’t apply; ala OJ Simpson, Rodney King, Anita Hill etc. In the Brawley case, Al Sharpton was continually referencing the “400 years” of unrequited oppression for black women and their inability to obtain redress within a racist criminal justice system. The fact is that had absolutely nothing to do with the Tawana Brawley case.

None of this would have happened if an unscrupulous DA had not chosen to exploit racial identity politics using an apparently mentally ill woman for his political gain, and if the Duke 88, the Durham black community, the radical feminists, and the racial grievance industry merchants had sifted thru the facts objectively and not attempted to stuff them into lurid post modern meta-narratives of privileged white male elites sexually exploiting black women. But than the attendant historical overtones of plantation sexual abuse were probably too much for them to resist. I have increasingly noted that fact and truth present no barrier to the fanatical Cultural Marxist.

My question now is this: Will all those who stampeded to rush to judge and vilify these innocent men now arrange a meeting with them, ala Imus to apologize and create a genuine aura of “healing”? I hope so but I don’t think so, because often being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.

Aside from the fact that petty tyrants like you have turned US college campuses into little ivy covered North Koreas, I suspect that you were seeking to appropriate PC bonus points and obtain instant moral authority by championing the cause of the “other” (marginalized black exotic dancer) against racist male chauvinist members of the privileged white elite. A case of cultural Marxist Class warfare that boomeranged. GOD how I love it so!!!!!

Even though I despise the racial identity politics that mindlessly multicultural cultural Marxists like you have fostered amongst my people to our ultimate detriment, I would like to state that I am a black man living in the heart of Chicago’s South Side ghetto, who values the rule of law and truth as best as it can be objectively and humanly determined.

It would be fitting if they get a pretty penny from you.

I got the response below:

Your continued messages have now moved into the realm of harassment and
I have reported you to your service provider for using abusive and
inappropriate language in your email which was sent through their servers.

Paula D. McClain
Professor of Political Science
Professor of Public Policy
Department of Political Science
Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences
Duke University

Accordingly, I responded as follows

I was unaware that the 2 emails that I sent to you had caused you such distress. I wish to tender my apologies and desire to assure you that you shall receive no further messages from me. But since you are a college professor I was acting upon the putative assumption that universities are about the exchange of ideas, and I thought that my admittedly critically gloating message might prompt a suitable rejoinder. My missive was harsh, yes even severe. But it does contain concepts and ideas that however offensive ought to provoke a suitably barbed retort rather than a threat of server censorship.

Alas, I shall have to reconsider the notion that the campus is about the free exchange of ideas. But this is precisely what I was getting at in my email. If you can ever manage to free yourself from leftist dogmatic doctrine maybe you will realize that.

This is the best evidence of the thought policing that must be extant on all too many college campuses. If she can threaten me with this, someone unconnected with Duke University, just imagine the ax that she wields over any dissenting students!!!! Political Correctness is the intellectual scourge of our time and the worst threat to academic freedom that I have ever seen.


23 posted on 08/11/2007 8:27:13 PM PDT by DMZFrank
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To: DMZFrank

“Political Correctness is the intellectual scourge of our time and the worst threat to academic freedom that I have ever seen.”

Make that freedom in general and you have my vote! Her response to you was typical. It required no thought or introspection.


24 posted on 08/12/2007 6:51:07 AM PDT by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: Inwoodian

Thanks for the reminder that: Al Gore Sr.’s sugar daddy was the Commie, Armand Hammer, master of Occidental Petroleum...this should be brought up everytime Al Bore is mentioned!


25 posted on 08/13/2007 5:15:14 AM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: OESY
...humiliating an Iraqi woman whose face had been "melted" by an IED

I was under the impression that the mocked woman was a US Soldier. Did I misremember my Newsweek fabrications?

26 posted on 08/13/2007 5:24:51 AM PDT by MortMan (Have a pheasant plucking day!)
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To: MortMan
I believe your recollection of the fabrication is correct—the alleged woman allegedly mocked was allegedly a US soldier. Now mind you, I have not read the article (or any article in Newsweek, Time, or other palpy alleged mainstream rag in quite a few years now) but I heard the discussion of same on the Hugh Hewitt show recently. The incident was said to have occurred in the “chow hall” a name used for the mess hall by Marines—not US Army personnel as depicted in the article.
27 posted on 08/14/2007 2:09:58 PM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: OESY

“we had to destroy the village to save it.”

In all likelihood, a U.S. servicemember never said this about Hue, Vietnam - it was made up by (drumroll) Peter Arnett.

Shame on Stephen Ambrose for quoting it as fact in one of his books.


28 posted on 08/15/2007 5:41:51 AM PDT by MIT-Elephant ("Armed with what? Spitballs?")
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To: Former Proud Canadian
What is “Newsweek”?

Fish wrap & bird cage liner.

29 posted on 08/15/2007 5:44:26 AM PDT by Lurking in Kansas (Nothing witty here...)
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To: Lurking in Kansas

The Media lies about the Duke LaCrosse Players simply illustrates that Men are considered as a Gender to be violent Rapists. The Empty Suits in the Media including the NY Slimes the former employer of Fiction Writer Jason Blair are fond on inventing news when they cannot correctly get the story straight. They are losing Readers and Circulation. Maybe Pinch Shulzberger has investments in other than Sub Prime Loan Bonds. Hope so. His Media Empire is shinking.

The Media got the story wrong from the beginning. And the Men were not judged according to the Facts. Jannette Rivers aka. Crystal Gail Magnum should be in jail. The Sex Worker a PC term for Prostitute is still free to accuse yet another set of Men. DNA Evidence revealed she was the depository for several Men. Although none of the were Duke LaCrosse Players.

And yet there are no apologies from John Edwards former Blogger in Chief Amanda Marcotte of pandagon.net. Nor from the Feminists who still think the Duke LaCrosse players are guilty. The US has become a Sex Prison for Men. Even innocent Men with their children are accused of being Pedophiles. And our Legal System will not punish Women who make False Accusations. It is not legal to kill your Husband in parts of the US. And serve less time than for killing a Dog.

Mary Winkler got away with the Murder of Her Husband. So Women can now Murder Men as well as their Babies with impunity. Ah yes the Fruits of Feminism. Where all Men are Sex Criminals, unless they are Gay Men.


30 posted on 08/24/2007 12:31:57 PM PDT by Khankrumthebulgar
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