Just to supplement Allison‘s hope that you didn’t miss the “60 Minutes” coverage of the Duke rape case, I’m adding this link to La Shawn Barber’s post on the case. La Shawn has been providing the most exhaustive (and exhaustively skeptical) coverage of the politically correct hoo-hah about “race, gender, and class” surrounding a black stripper’s claim that she was raped by three white Duke lacrosse players in March. And La Shawn says “60 Minutes” is finally redeeming itself after the Selectric-gate fiasco of two years ago:
“Rather than playing hard left politics, the old dudes actually did what journalists are supposed to do: present facts to the American people. Host Ed Bradley said ’60 Minutes’ examined the case file, and it raised concerns about the police who investigated the alleged gang-rape and Mike Nifong, the district attorney in charge of the flimsy case.”
As La Shawn points out, there wasn’t much new on the “60 Minutes” episode, except this:
“Also on the program, the accuser is seen dancing on a pole in a strip club two weeks after the alleged attack, according to video aired for the first time Sunday night.
The second dancer at the party that night, Kim Roberts, told the news program she never saw any indications that the accuser had been assaulted…..
“In the interview Sunday, Roberts denied a key aspect of the accuser’s statement to police – that the lacrosse players pulled them apart and dragged the accuser into a bathroom, where she told authorities she was raped orally, anally and vaginally. She said Roberts came into the bathroom afterwards and helped the players redress the accuser, another contention disputed by Roberts.”
Even some of the stripper’s most loyal supporters are starting to have their doubts, as Shawn reports on this post on Justice 4 Two Sisters:
“First, by this point I’ve given up hope the child’s (that’s Roberts’s) attorney, Mark Simeon, has any control of her wardrobe choices, with that skirt she was sporting slit up to her pelvic bone…Can you say ‘credibility’ boys and girls?….
“Secondly ,the glibness of her responses sounded more like she was being grilled by a boyfriend about her whereabouts that night, rather than the facts in a felony sexual assault case….Hope you think this is as funny when you are on the witness stand charged with perjury and you have priors? Even though I’ve defended her here, based on her actions, clearly the almighty dollar is what drives Ms. Kim to do anything.(including change her story for ’60 Minutes’, which is disconcerting.)”
Of course, Roberts has changed her story about as many times as the stripper herself.
But the stripper does have a few diehard supporters, including her cousin, Jakki:
“Asked why a woman who said she was brutally raped and beaten by three men just two weeks before would return to nude dancing, Jakki said her cousin ‘has to survive.’
“‘She’s a mother too, and she’s a student, and … she has to make a living. She has to survive and that’s unfortunate.”’
Comments La Shawn:
“If anyone out there still believes David Evans, Reade Seligmann, or Collin Finnerty raped a black stripper on March 13, 2006, you’re willfully deaf and blind.”