Friday, June 9: Nasty stuff you may not want to know.
Hold your horses, because this case can and will get weaker.
Thursday, June 8: I suspect this won’t surprise anyone, but here’s the latest info in the Duke lacrosse scandal:
1) Kim “Second Stripper” Roberts initially said she was with the accuser the entire time they were at the party;
2) Accuser told the police she was raped, sodomized, and strangled, but told the nurse “she was not choked; that no condoms, fingers or foreign objects were used during the sexual assault.”
The nurse noted that the stripper’s arms, legs, throat, etc., appeared “normal.”
Crack witnesses you got there, Nifong.
Also see Missing the Point: Conservatives and the Duke case.
Wednesday, June 7: When I called Duke president Richard Brodhead a “wimp,” I was on the right track. He not only looked and sounded weak at the press conference, but he’s also unprincipled.
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*** Lacrosse team reinstated. Scroll down for updates ***
Duke University is scheduled to discuss the men’s lacrosse program at 2:00 p.m. EST. You may recall that the administration fired the coach and canceled the team’s remaining season after a stripper claimed three players raped and beat her on March 14.
According to rumor, Duke will reinstate the lacrosse team. If the conference is streamed online, I’ll live-blog it. For my take on related news and events, see the Duke Rape Case category. (If you don’t see the “Next Page” link at the bottom, click here for page two.)
2:00 p.m.: It’s all below the fold.
The conference begins. Someone is introducing people: Board of Trustees folks, etc. Duke President Brodhead will make the announcement. Blah, blah, blah, external and internal committees, allowing the criminal investigation to run its course, etc.
Brodhead is giving a summary of events thus far. “None of us knows what happened” that night, blah, blah, blah. “We must take matters seriously” until they’re resolved. Now he’s talking about the biased, race-loaded report he commissioned in April (reported here – download PDF copy).
Brodhead’s droning on about “campus culture,” the need to be sensitive to racial matters, address campus drinking, etc. Duke needs to find ways to promote its positive effects…Duke is determined to address these issues. (I’d love to have a face to face conversation with this man. I’ll bet he’s never met someone like me. The shock would probably give him a heart attack. 
)
He’s discussing changes in the University’s oversight of athletics. Good, and that should include all sports programs at Duke.
Bottom line: The lacrosse team will be reinstated. Now he’s trying to justify why he canceled the team’s remaining season. Nothing new here.
2:11: He’s “remained concerned” about the March 13 party, which involved “highly inappropriate” behavior. Conditions for reinstating: The players needed to commit to and uphold a code of conduct, which they agreed to do. Brodhead says he’s “taking a risk” in reinstating the team. Wimp.
A reporter asked a panelist about hiring a new lacrosse coach. Someone (no name) said they’re looking at a former lacrosse player as the new head coach.
Does anyone remember seeing or hearing similar press conferences when black ball players raped or assaulted white co-eds? Me, neither. As I said, looooooowwwwwer standards.
(How about this, this, this, this, and especially this? National news isn’t covering it, but here’s an update in the Brigham Young gang-rape case. The players had sex with a “barely conscious” girl. One player plead out but charges were dropped after the girl refused to testify in another rape case, two players were aquitted, and one plead to “forcible sodomy.” In that case, at least the DA had evidence the idiots had sex with the girl. In the Duke case, Mike Nifong’s “evidence” barely registers, yet he marches on with this farce.)
Question for white readers: Why don’t white communities rant and rave and call press conferences when white women are raped by black men?
2:22: The press conference continues, but I’m signing off.
Update (4:22 p.m.): Mary Katharine Ham says:
I grew up in neighborhood near Duke– a neighborhood that has had the honor of having more than one serial rapist bear its name over the years. In those cases, the rapists were black and most of their victims white. The national press was largely unconcerned. There were very few candlelight vigils in town for those victims. There were no dialogues and “healing conferences” held.
