Wait, who the heck is this David Yeagley guy? How is he "the right?" Why not just say Yeagley did a shitty job? And how can we "purge" people we've never heard of? I mean I don't go around lefty blogs checking out who they're slagging today, so for all I know, he might be the poster boy for idiots in their crowd, but with as much reading as I do, I haven't once heard of him. But we certainly *do* flush out the loons, or at least try to. (Case in point: Debbie the Skank Schlussel, just as a recent example. Michael Savage is another. And look at that WaPo blog mess. Anyway, just off the top of my head.)

And about government assistance vs. working as a stripper--I'm scratching my head at this. I just haven't seen other people saying the crap Yeagley is saying. He's full of shit, and I don't know anyone who'd say strippers/prostitutes/whatever ASK FOR it. I sure as hell wouldn't. There's a big difference between putting yourself at greater risk than others, and DESERVING violence. (I consider "she asked for it" not so different from "she deserved it.)

Seriously, I don't get why you assume everyone who's piled on this girl is automatically conservative by default. There are plenty of politically agnostic and "liberals" (heh) who might say the same thing as well. You're painting all conservatives with the same brush, and you KNOW that doesn't fit.

In the middle of a crime, one does not attack the victim, you go after the criminal.

One thing though: we KNOW the kidnappers are who they are, and we know she was held hostage. We don't KNOW those asshats at Duke are criminals.

Look, I'd be happy to see all rapists be put before firing squads aiming straight at their genitalia. I wouldn't bat an eye. BUT...I wouldn't do it without a fair trial, either. Innocent until proven guilty--even when we hate it. And I don't think these punks are any more credible witnesses than the alleged victim, I'm just saying despite my initial thoughts that "yeah, they probably did it," I'm not so sure any more. I'm not saying they didn't do it, I'm just not saying they did.

One more thing to ponder: Do you suppose if the girl had gotten gang-raped in her own neighborhood, where ever that is, this case would have gotten the attention is has? That's where the charges of the coverage being racist sorta doesn't quite wash with me. It's getting coverage because of who these twerps are, and they are the accused, not the complainants. What about all the other women who report rapes? It could be argued that the media is too eager to vilify a bunch of rich white boys, compared to the Joe Schmos who are accused of rape. But I'm not arguing either way about it, it's just a thought.

I'm not trying to pick holes in your argument as much as you might think I am. It's just my two cents. I haven't even paid much attention to the whole thing, anyway.

Way to ignore the paragraph in which I explicitly acknowledge that FrontPage mag's not exactly a leading light of conservatism, Beth.

Hey, you know something? Democratic Underground's not exactly representative of mainstream liberalism, either. Good thing no one ever goes after them! It's not like anyone ever made a fucking blog career out of it!

But okay, that's tu quoque. Back to my point: Readers of Feministe expected this woman to be dragged through the mud. Guess what? SHE WAS. And not just by Yeagley--or did I miss the part where anyone, ANYONE AT ALL on the right, told Muslihoon to shut up and sit down when he said the woman should be prosecuted for filing false charges? (Crumb, but I tire of linking that!) Okay, there's no DNA match; from that we should go straight to "Clearly, the bitch is lying?"

Talk about a rush to judgment! Just once I'd like someone BESIDES ME to note that when Muslihoon became a rightwing blog celebrity for converting from Islam, he unfortunately retained all Islam's rotten women-hatin' cultural proclivities--and NO ONE MINDS OR OBJECTS TO THAT because, yay, he really stuck it to those Islamofascists, huh? He's on our side now! Let's have a party!

Fuck him. He can go back home to have his head chopped off for all I care.

One thing though: we KNOW the kidnappers are who they are, and we know she was held hostage. We don't KNOW those asshats at Duke are criminals.

That's you. Here's me!

One difference, one very obvious difference, between Jill Carroll and the unidentified rape victim, is that in Carroll's case we had evidence immediately that a crime had occurred. We had evidence immediately regarding who committed it. We don't have that in this case, and in that sense, Darleen's point is valid: It's wrong to presume to know, in advance, who did what.

So we disagree on what, then?

I'm totally with you on the update (and the rest of the post, of course).

What continues to bother me is that "innocent until proven guilty" is a phrase that we apply to criminals and their vicitms pretty much across the board, unless it comes to rape cases -- at which point the situation often turns into "innocent until proven guilty" for alleged rapists and "lying until proven truthful" for
alleged victims.

Well, that and the number of people who think that bloggers (feminist bloggers, especially, the harlots) can try, sentence, and execute alleged criminals on the internet.

[Ilyka says: I posted this on Lauren's behalf from an email I had from her. Is anyone else having site trouble? Okay, maybe this isn't the best place to ask that question . . . but, well, gimme a holler if you are. Can't think how else to handle it right now.]

Further, Beth, re: My use of "the right"--I guess we kicked out Rush Limbaugh too, huh?

I don't really disagree, but I do have a few...nits to pick, I suppose. First, the part you have bolded in the update quote: she also tried to run over a cop a few years ago, and she could very possibly be a member of Mensa for all I know; the reason she's identified as "The exotic dancer" is because that is how she gets tied into this story. Not in a "She asked for it" or whatever sense. If she had been dropping off her kids for daycare at the frathouse, she'd be called "The mo*ther (stupid spamfilter) of two"; if she was going over to drop off notes, she'd be identified as "the student", but she was going over there to strip, so she's the stripper. But having said that, it would be nice to get away from that descriptor and just use "The woman" or "alleged victim"; because I agree that constantly refferring to her as a stripper does tend to dehumanize her and deligitimize what she has alleged.

Also, with respect to: "But I believe also that there are vast differences of degree between players being suspended and undergoing a criminal investigation, and a woman being called a lying, manipulative slut who deserved what happened...etcetc" The only group that has had anything actually happen to them, though, is the Lacrosse team (which, of course, is as it should be). The woman has been called some pretty nasty names (especially in the blogosphere, but in the media at large as well); then again, so have the Lacrosse players ("rapist" and "racist" come to mind; the second is probably accurate with at least some, the first is still up in the air) in very public forums before there was any evidence either way. I'm sure I could find more graphic stuff if I really dug around, but really, how much worse do we need to get than simply branding forty some odd men as rapists because three of them might be? That is neither better nor worse than that stupid-ass frontpage article.

I guess we're just looking at it a bit differently. I don't assume that the woman is credible: I assume I don't know any of these people so they're all equally credible (or, because I'm a pessimist, none of them have any credibility until proven otherwise).

One difference, one very obvious difference, between Jill Carroll and the unidentified rape victim, is that in Carroll's case we had evidence immediately that a crime had occurred.

There is quite good evidence in the Duke case, too, that a crime has occurred. The doctor and nurse who examined the victim immediately after the crime found injuries consistent with sexual assault.

No, we don't know who assaulted her, but we know she was assaulted.

I don't really disagree, but I do have a few...nits to pick, I suppose.

Y esto es por qué me gusta a ti, Francis--because you don't come into this with an agenda; you simply note what doesn't sit well with you.

Also, you read what I write and deal from that. Shit, can I clone you?

the reason she's identified as "The exotic dancer" is because that is how she gets tied into this story

Point: We, and I mean both-sides-of-the-aisle we, ought to know by now that the flip side of being beholden to a deadline, as journalists and copy editors are, is that you don't have time for the nuance.

Aside:

she'd be called "The mo*ther (stupid spamfilter) of two

Yeah, remind me to take a look at the mu.nu spamfilter. I like how we let everybody on mu.nu use it with abandon, don't you?

But having said that, it would be nice to get away from that descriptor and just use "The woman" or "alleged victim"; because I agree that constantly refferring to her as a stripper does tend to dehumanize her and deligitimize what she has alleged.

Right, and that's where I run smack up against my also-I-want-a-pony side: Wouldn't it be nice if . . . ?

I'm sure I could find more graphic stuff if I really dug around, but really, how much worse do we need to get than simply branding forty some odd men as rapists because three of them might be? That is neither better nor worse than that stupid-ass frontpage article.

And here you have my sympathies only because I, also, do not want to research every single thing written ever-ever-ever about this case, and then cite it as evidence.

Hell, I tried to tonight. I ran the Technorati. All I got were a bunch of sports-centric blogs and, to their credit, most of them were of the mind that they didn't know WHAT to think. You know, I can deal with "I don't know what to think; the jury's still out." Maybe what I should clarify is what I can't deal with:

--I can't deal with knowing that I've bought several of David Horowitz's books, and he's using whatever-fraction-of-a-cent of the proceeds to pay some hater like Yeagley. Horowitz's whole thing, in the books of his I've read, is that he isn't a bigot and he isn't a sexist. Yeah? Actions speak louder than words, David.

--I can't deal with knowing that Rush Limbaugh's comment that "just slipped out," i.e., his instinctive reaction when discussing the case, was to call the alleged victim a "ho."

--Finally, what I really, really, really can't deal with is certain right-wing blogs whose sites strongly resemble this one pouncing on the first indication that this case might not be clear cut by sending all their half-witted commenters over to Feministe in order to pronounce such stupidities as, "Well, don't you believe in 'innocent until proven guilty?'" No, dude, I believe in TOTAL FASCISM!

This is especially stupid when you consider that one of the Feministe bloggers is in law school and one of them actually IS a lawyer. More importantly than any of that, NO ONE THERE SAID ANYTHING against the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."

What they did admit to was a bias in favor of the victim. Supposedly, that's the beauty of blogs: You know the bias up front. How many times have we heard that from Roger L. Simon, huh?

What I'm seeing, though, is that it's perfectly okay to have a "bias up front" so long as it's the right--and I mean that literally and figuratively--bias.

Nuh-uh. No. If bias is okay, bias is okay--regardless of which direction it comes from. Anything else is "claiming special privileges"--an accusation I see right-leaning blogs hurl OUT the same way they'd draw a breath to breathe, but which my own personal experience with blogging tells me they don't take so fucking well in reverse.

Ilyka

I was really pissed when I posted. Not always a good thing and I hope you know its much of this topic that pisses me off rather than you.

Maybe I wasn't as adament about how we should no more jump to conclusions about the vic than the perps, but I'm so USED to defending vics I just kinda take it as a given people who read me on a regular basis know that.

REAL harm has come with the Duke LaX players ARE rapists rush-to-judgement. Seems even a random male Duke student can be beaten into unconsciousness for the crime of being...well a Duke Male Student:

'This is Central territory; you're not welcome here. Duke kids rape women and we don't want you raping our women'

Of course, the fact that it took a dozen guys to terrorize two people and the use of the phrase "our women" is another day's discourse on mob psychology and the binary nature of young male minds.

I fully support the use of all forensic science as I want to go where the evidence points. Direct evidence (witness testimony) is not always reliable or even credible. Show me fingerprints, DNA, spatter patterns, ballistics, footprints, etc and I'll take that over an eyewitness to the opposite any day.

Prosecuters CAN get it wrong, and it is a show of character whether they can actually serve justice rather than their own political career. Nifong's statements alone raise some huge flags on his own prejudice in this case.

This case was fucked from the get-go.

Assumption: the woman is a 'ho' cuz she's a stripper
Assumption: the guys are rapists cuz they are frat boys (with homo tendencies which gangrape will prove their straight creds)

Both assumptions are bigot inspired bullsh*t. And that's leaving aside the racist stuff. (aside: another annoying factiod is that interracial crime is RARE. And when it does happen, more often whites are victims)

What do I KNOW? That Duke Lax players had a party off campus with alcohol (suspendable offense there due to underage drinking) and that they hired strippers (morals clause for suspending... if that isn't in Duke student conduct code, it should be). One 27 y/o woman ends up in the hospital with bruising and injuries "consistent" (legal speak) with assault.

She claims rape. Duke players deny claim.

Forensic evidence revealed at this point in time supports the latter's denial.

I've talked on the qt with a couple of attorneys and unless some magic DNA makes an appearance linking one or more of the players to the woman, they would not file. Regardless of her "identification" of one or more players. If nothing else, they'd kick it back to the police agency to find out who really assaulted the woman.

PS...

The above is why I'll never get seated on a jury.

heh