Worst argument of the week award
I’d never heard of ABC’s Terry Moran but, aside from now having learned that he’s a co-anchor on Nightline, I figured he must be someone, because they’ve given him his own blog page. (Wooo-ey!) The powers that be at ABC might have done him more of a favor if they hadn’t given him his own blog page because, as seems to happen occasionally when media people go off script, he exposes a part of his brain better left unseen.
Moran’s point today (hat tip: Drudge) is that the Duke LaCrosse players are not nice people, so they shouldn’t complain about having major criminal charges leveled against them, incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees, and becoming the subject of nationwide scorn and humiliation. Yup, that’s what he really says. Here, read it yourself:
But perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced. They got special treatment in the justice system–both negative and positive. The conduct of the lacrosse team of which they were members was not admirable on the night of the incident, to say the least. And there are so many other victims of prosecutorial misconduct in this country who never get the high-priced legal representation and the high-profile, high-minded vindication that it strikes me as just a bit unseemly to heap praise and sympathy on these particular men.
So as we rightly cover the vindication of these young men and focus on the genuine ordeal they have endured, let us also remember a few other things:
They were part of a team that collected $800 to purchase the time of two strippers.
Their team specifically requested at least one white stripper.
During the incident, racial epithets were hurled at the strippers.
Colin Finnerty was charged with assault in Washington, DC, in 2005.
The young men were able to retain a battery of top-flight attorneys, investigators and media strategists.
As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives.
There’s more, but I think the stuff I quoted makes the point sufficiently well. Let me reiterate what he says: These men were charged with one of the worst crimes in America — gang rape. And not just gang rape, but racially motivated gang rape. It was apparent almost from the outset that the charges were unwarranted, and that they represented instead the perfect storm of a sociopathic, confabulating accuser, and a politically motivated, amoral prosecutor. The men were named in every media outlet in America, castigated as rapists and racists, dragged through the criminal justice system, and had their academic and athletic careers destroyed — all while it was manifestly obvious that they could not have done what they are alleged to have done. While it is true that they got more sympathy than the average defendant, they also got much, much, much more exposure. They can’t run and hide. Throughout America, not just in their community, they are the Duke rapists.
But heck, it’s all okay because they’re not nice people. You realize that this means that, from here on out, we’re justified in wrongly accusing and dragging through the justice system all Americans who watch strippers, who like strippers in a variety of colors, and who are in the company of people who make racial epithets (because you’ll notice that the not-so-bright Terry is still bright enough not to accuse the now-exonerated players of having voiced those same epithets). Also, you can smear anyone who was charged — not convicted, mind you, because we now know how much convictions are worth, but just charged — with assault. Oh, and by the way, here’s the kicker — anyone who goes to a fancy school is fair game. Clearly, Moran vaguely regrets that we didn’t just lynch them at the get-go for having the temerity to attend a nice college.
Of course, I’m sure you’ve realized by now that Moran is making precisely the same point Estrich belabors in the first 52 pages of her attempted take-down of Ann Coulter: People you don’t like have no rights. Moran makes clear that, in the identity politics game, one sociopathic, lying accuser trumps three innocuous college boys whose lives have gone through a sordid, public wringer, solely because she is poor and black, while they are, well, “rich” white college boys. In Moran’s view, the fact that they did nothing illegal, and were scapegoated for political opportunism, is totally okay because they are the wrong color, the wrong wealth, and they didn’t behave in the way Moran thinks they should have. Imagine this type of case in Mississippi, circa 1900, except switch the defendants a little bit: Moran still doesn’t care what they did, he just cares that they’re black, poor, and have the wrong attitude. It was a poisonous way of thinking then, it’s a poisonous way of thinking now.
UPDATE: Welcome, American Thinker readers. This is pretty much the post Thomas Lifson saw and commented upon. However, when I went back and read it, I found some grammar and typo problems that I corrected. (And I’m sure there are still legions that I haven’t corrected.)
UPDATE II: I didn’t realize it until I read it at American Thinker that Terry Moran is brother to Rick Moran, of Rightwing Nuthouse and American Thinker fame. As I noted in the opening paragraph, I’d never heard of Terry Moran. Respecting as I do Rick Moran’s thinking, I apologize for having personally insulted Terry’s intelligence, since I’m willing to bet that Terry shares Rick’s intelligence. (Those must be very interesting Thanksgiving dinners at the Moran home, though.) I do not apologize, though, for insulting Terry Moran’s ideas which, at least to the extent he expresses them vis a vis the lacrosse players, I think are dead wrong.
