{"id":713,"date":"2007-04-13T05:18:55","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T11:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/04\/13\/i-judge-jury-and-executioner\/"},"modified":"2007-04-13T08:00:11","modified_gmt":"2007-04-13T14:00:11","slug":"i-judge-jury-and-executioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=713","title":{"rendered":"I, Judge, Jury and Executioner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the past week, the house of cards has collapsed of its own febrile weight.\u00a0 The Duke Lacrosse Rape case is no more.\u00a0 There was no there, there.\u00a0 Mike Nifong apparently ginned the whole thing up based on a fraudulent story,\u00a0in a (successful) bid to pander for votes.<\/p>\n<p>It has been, as a lawyer acquaintance noted, one of the most devastating shut-downs in the history of American jurisprudence, that rare case of misconduct so grotesque it may well take down an elected prosecutor.\u00a0 Go ahead, look and see how common that is.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Fecke &#8211; local rent-a-blogger who works for &#8220;Minnesota Monitor&#8221;, the local plutolefty group blog, for which he took a &#8220;pledge&#8221; to be a good, balanced journalist\u00a0&#8211; has been among the most vitriolic in condemning not only the accused, but those who assailed DA Nifong for what increasingly seemed to be gross misconduct (as, eventually, turned out to be fact), and in the end men as a gender.<\/p>\n<p>Now, nobody&#8217;s accused Jeff of being the most discerning blogger.\u00a0 Last fall, when local conservative bloggers launched charges [as yet unanswered] that Minnesota Monitor was supported by George Soros and other left-of-center plutocrats, Jeff responded with a photoshopped &#8220;cartoon&#8221; of local conservative bloggers, including me; (To be fair, he&#8217;s a better cartoonist than Ken Avidor.\u00a0 To be fairer, neither of them is as visually or comedically talented as Swiftee). The balloon over my head has me saying something like &#8220;I&#8217;ll do what I always do &#8211; lead off with an unsubstantiated allegation&#8221; (or words to that effect.\u00a0 <em>I&#8217;m <\/em>not going to go looking for it!).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cue Alannis Morrisette.<\/p>\n<p>The subject of sexual assault <a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?cat=33\">rates an entire category<\/a> on &#8220;Blog of the Moderate Left&#8221;, his long-running leftyblog; it includes many nuggets of wisdom (including <a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=2912\">putting the words<\/a> &#8220;<font color=\"#9999ff\">I am a rapist<\/font>&#8221; in Vox Day&#8217;s mouth).<\/p>\n<p>But on the issue of the Duke lacrosse case, he&#8217;s been modestly prolific &#8211; and immodestly absolutist in his conclusions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=2441\">On the third indictment<\/a>, last fall:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/Global\/story.asp?S=4906359&#038;nav=0RdE\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#9999ff\">team captain<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Cue defense whining about how this is totally a witch hunt.<\/p>\n<p>Interesting, since I thought Nifong was <a href=\"http:\/\/bitheads.blogspot.com\/2006\/04\/may-second.html\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#9999ff\">only trying this case to win the primary<\/font><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;d be one of the &#8220;snarks by negation&#8221; that leftyblogs have perfected &#8211; and by &#8220;perfected&#8221; I mean &#8220;beat to death to the point where it&#8217;s become a stylistic cliche almost too depressing to mock anymore&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ironic in retrospect, though, huh?<\/p>\n<p>On the news that one of the [formerly] accused <a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=2358\">had been convicted of assault against a gay guy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I don\u2019t know if either suspect is guilty [of the rape charge].\u00a0 (I have my suspicions.)\u00a0 But it does appear that these weren\u2019t poor, innocent naifs who got set up by a scheming, drunk, black stripper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ah.\u00a0 The old &#8220;it appears to me&#8221; standard.<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=2357\">the first two arrests<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"storycontent\">Well, I guess the case isn\u2019t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/disp\/story.mpl\/ap\/college\/3800817.html\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#9999ff\">wholly without merit after all<\/font><\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Two 20-year-old Duke University lacrosse players were arrested early Tuesday on charges of raping and kidnapping a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party.<\/p>\n<p>Reade Seligmann posted a $400,000 bond and Collin Finnerty was in the process of doing so for the same amount, said Col. George Naylor of the Durham County jail. By posting bond, the players avoided making an initial court appearance later in the day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Now, of course, we enter the twilight phase where there\u2019ll be\u00a0plenty of <em>ad hominem<\/em> attacks launched against the victim, because that\u2019s how you defend an accused rapist\u2013by turning the tables and smearing the accuser.\u00a0 I wonder why rape is underreported?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder why fraudulent charges aren&#8217;t reported often enough?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the lack of DNA evidence that was the first big hole in Nifong&#8217;s &#8220;Case&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Orenthal James Simpson is almost certainly guilty of having killed two people, but a jury of his peers felt differently, and thus he walks free today, hunting for the \u201creal killer\u201d on golf courses throughout America.<\/p>\n<p>Keep this in mind as people try to tell you that the <a href=\"http:\/\/pandagon.net\/2006\/04\/10\/breaking\/\" target=\"_blank\"><font color=\"#9999ff\">absence of DNA evidence<\/font><\/a> in the Duke Lacrosse rape case is proof that the men are innocent, and the woman is lying<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If OJ did it, a bunch of privileged white kids <em>must <\/em>have done it!<\/p>\n<p>Back before there were any arrests &#8211; back when it was just the &#8220;victim&#8217;s&#8221; word against every college kid (race indeterminate) in the greater Duke area, Jeff &#8211; perhaps overestimating his blog&#8217;s reach &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=2317\">called out<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There is no honor in <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/ncaa\/columns\/story?id=2389669&#038;lpos=spotlight&#038;lid=tab1pos1\"><font color=\"#9999ff\">covering up rape<\/font><\/a>. Ever. So long as you remain silent, three rapists remain free\u2013and so long as you remain silent, you give your assent that this is okay.<\/p>\n<p>And that makes you almost as bad as them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Got that?\u00a0 It&#8217;s <em>all our our fault<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>That was as far as I could get.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, leftybloggers; Jeff Fecke indicted and convicted not only the Duke Lacrosse players &#8211; and a good chunk of male American to boot.<\/p>\n<p>When comes the part that a &#8220;journalist&#8221; would get to next?\u00a0 Apologizing for the <em>slander <\/em>on the characters of the three who were wrongly charged?\u00a0 Apologizing for denying them the slim dignity that <em>all <\/em>accused in this country are supposed to be accorded &#8211; the right to be <em>considered innocent until proven guilty?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Apologizing for denying them, over the past year, the one courtesy the media &#8211; <em>every <\/em>journalist &#8211; is <em>supposed <\/em>to accord the accused in this country; referring to their <em>alleged <\/em>guilt, rather than stating it as a proven fact?<\/p>\n<p>Where <em>is <\/em>the justice?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Of course, it&#8217;s only fair that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/moderateleft.com\/?p=1880\">Fecke questions his own judgement<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I stopped being a Bears fan and started to love the Vikings.There have been many times since that I\u2019ve wondered whether I made the right decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, he&#8217;s capable of <em>some <\/em>remorse, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>CORRECTION:\u00a0 Mike, not Tom, Nifong.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I was mixing him up with one of the Grand Rapids Nifongs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past week, the house of cards has collapsed of its own febrile weight.\u00a0 The Duke Lacrosse Rape case is no more.\u00a0 There was no there, there.\u00a0 Mike Nifong apparently ginned the whole thing up based on a fraudulent story,\u00a0in a (successful) bid to pander for votes. It has been, as a lawyer acquaintance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-crime-and-punishment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}